On the 29th of May, the well known BitTorrent search website TorrentSpy has been ordered by a federal Judge in the Central District of California in Los Angeles to take logs of its user activities on the website.  TorrentSpy has been granted until June 12th to file an appeal and the order is currently under seal until Friday 15th.  TorrentSpy was sued back in February 2006 by the MPAA alleged of making it easier to download pirated content.

One thing concerning about the order is that TorrentSpy has made a promise in its privacy policy to never track visitors without their consent.  As a result, according to TorrentSpy's attorney, if this order stands, it would mean that discovery judges can require websites to track its users even if they have a policy against this.  He also mentioned that TorrentSpy would block US visitors rather than start tracking its users.

The EFF is reviewing the court's decision and believes this to be the first time a judge has ordered a defendant to track its users and pass the information to the plaintiff.  Usually a defendant is not required to do something like this.

Thanks to DamnedIfIknow for letting us know about this news.  Further information on this can be read on this c|net story.