{"id":73545,"date":"2023-06-10T09:14:30","date_gmt":"2023-06-10T09:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=73545"},"modified":"2023-06-10T09:14:30","modified_gmt":"2023-06-10T09:14:30","slug":"youtube-orders-invidious-privacy-software-to-shut-down-in-7-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=73545","title":{"rendered":"YouTube Orders \u2018Invidious\u2019 Privacy Software to Shut Down in 7 Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"invidious-logo\"<\/a>With an estimated 2.5 billion users overall and around 120 million users active daily, YouTube is an entertainment powerhouse and a globally-recognized brand.<\/p>\n

Premium products aside, YouTube is free to use. But with around a billion hours of content consumed every day, YouTube has to find ways to make that pay. <\/p>\n

The most visible cost to the user is advertising, lots and lots of advertising. Less visible costs include significant user tracking, with an average of seven trackers per YouTube page, according to WhoTracksMe<\/a> data.<\/p>\n

With a growing subset of YouTube\u2019s users becoming more aware of how the platform is monetized, YouTube appears to be paying greater attention to those with a preference to opt out, whether that\u2019s through browser extensions like uBlock Origin or other methods that require even less effort.<\/p>\n

Invidious: A Privacy Front-End For YouTube<\/h2>\n

Invidious<\/a> describes itself as an open source alternative front-end to YouTube. In basic terms, this means accessing YouTube via a different interface on a different domain which strips away the advertising, user tracking, and reliance on Google subscriptions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A Public Invidious Instance<\/em>\"invidious-ss\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

The software is licensed under AGPL-3.0<\/a> and, for those with nominal technical skills, Invidious can be self-hosted on relatively modest hardware using Docker<\/a>. For those who prefer just to use Invidious, there is no shortage of people happy to share their instances<\/a> with the public.<\/p>\n

How long that will continue is now up for debate.<\/p>\n

YouTube Legal Orders Invidious to Shut Down<\/h2>\n

A few hours ago, the Invidious team revealed that YouTube\u2019s legal department had made contact, claiming to have become \u201crecently aware\u201d of breaches of YouTube terms of service agreements and developer policies.<\/p>\n

The crux of YouTube\/Google\u2019s claims is that clients (Invidious in this case) that use YouTube\u2019s API (application programming interface) must display and link to Google\u2019s privacy policy and \u201cclearly and comprehensively\u201d explain how their client uses and processes user information. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"invidious-google-1\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

API clients must not \u201cplace any limitations\u201d on YouTube functionality, or \u201cmimic or replicate core user experiences\u201d unless they add \u201csignificant independent value or functionality.\u201d Clients may not infringe copyrights or exploit copyright-infringing materials, Google adds. (1<\/a>,2<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that you will cooperate with us by correcting and ceasing to Offer Your Client that violates our terms and policies within 7 days from the date of this letter,\u201d the shutdown notice<\/a> concludes.<\/p>\n

Invidious Team Feel Uncooperative<\/h2>\n

The main problems apparent in Google\u2019s cease and desist are straightforward; Invidious does not use YouTube\u2019s API, and as a result, the project\u2019s developers never agreed to any associated terms of service. As anyone who foolishly left their own instance open to the public will confirm, Invidious is effectively a proxy service, one with a penchant for bandwidth.<\/p>\n

\u201c[YouTube\/Google] don\u2019t understand that we never agreed to any of their TOS\/policies, they don\u2019t understand that we don\u2019t use their API,\u201d team member TheFrenchGhosty commented<\/a> on GitHub.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings will continue normally until they can\u2019t anymore. Assume it\u2019s just the start. Assume they\u2019ll ask GitHub to takedown the repos (if so go to our Gitea https:\/\/gitea.invidious.io\/iv-org<\/a>). Assume the team wont be able to work on Invidious. You know what you have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team says they \u201cwon\u2019t do anything\u201d unless they have to, but also acknowledge that this may not end well. <\/p>\n

The cease and desist may not specifically apply due to its focus on YouTube\u2019s API but, since users of YouTube are also subjected to endless terms and conditions, finding a different angle won\u2019t be hard. If YouTube\/Google really wants the Invidious team out of the picture, they are prepared for that, but disappearing their software will present a whole new set of challenges. <\/p>\n

\u201cMay Invidious live and prosper, with, or without us,\u201d the team conclude.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"invidious-ss1\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With an estimated 2.5 billion users overall and around 120 million users active daily, YouTube is an entertainment powerhouse and a globally-recognized brand. Premium products aside, YouTube is free to use. But with around a billion hours of content consumed every day, YouTube has to find ways to make that pay. The most visible cost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73546,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}