A recent court decision states that the popular bittorrent site must begin tracking visitors' activities for usage in any potential lawsuits that may arise.

TorrentSpy has promised in its privacy policy never to track visitors without their consent. "It is likely that TorrentSpy would turn off access to the U.S. before tracking its users," Rothken said. "If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise."

The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Columbia Pictures and other top Hollywood film studios, sued TorrentSpy and a host of others in February 2006 as part of a sweep against file-sharing companies. According to the MPAA, the search engine was sued for allegedly making it easier to download pirated files. Representatives of the trade group could not be reached for comment.