An American court has ruled that all users of YouTube must be identified to it. Which means world-wide.
I don't understand what this sentence is supposed to mean. That an American court is telling people in other parts of the world what to do? That an American court ordered that YouTube users be identified to the court? That's not what the ruling said.
Viacom is suing Google (which owns YouTube) for copyright infringement. Google says they try to remove copyrighted material as soon as they know of its presence. Viacom responds that YouTube videos of Viacom-owned shows have been viewed over 1.5 billion times. Viacom wants access to information on user viewing habits to prove that copyright-infringing material is more popular than user-generated videos on YouTube, and that the reason YouTube permits them to remain online is because their presence increases YouTube's traffic.
The Federal court ordered Google to turn the user info over to Viacom. Google is attempting to get permission from the court to redact user identifying information from the discovery since all Viacom really wants is the veiwing frequency. This request will most likly be granted.
This is a standard discovery request; discovery goes to the requesting party, not to the court. In the event the matter goes to trial some of the general information might become public knowledge, but not info as to any specific user - it simply isn't relevant and isn't even what Viacom wants.
What's the problem with this ruling? How does it constitute the US "running the world?" There are lots of bad things that can be said about the US - but this isn't one of them.