Google Found Guilty, Italian-Style
ADOTAS – The European Union sure does love getting in a tizzy about online privacy — especially when it concerns the goings-on of a certain search behemoth — but the Italian court system just upped the ante with a criminal conviction. A judge in Milan found former Google executives David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes guilty of violating Italy’s privacy code in regards to uploaded videos of an autistic boy being beaten by schoolmates in 2006.
According to Google, not only did the company remove the “reprehensible” videos from its site within hours of its upload, it helped authorities in Turin, Italy, track down all the guilty parties — the videographer and bullies — who were sentenced to months of community service.
Apparently that wasn’t enough for a local prosecutor, who brought the Google execs to court on the ground that they were liable for the content uploaded to their site. Judge Oscar Magi agreed that they violated Italy’s privacy code and gave Drummond, Fleisher and Reyes suspended six-month sentences (way to bring the hammer down, judge!). A fourth executive, Arvind Desikan, was acquitted for violating the privacy code, and all four were found not guilty of criminal defamation.
No surprise, a Google spokesperson said the company is appealing the ruling, calling it outrageous that the executives were subjected to a trial. On a blog, Matt Sucherman, vice president and deputy general counsel — Europe, Middle East and Africa wrote that Google was deeply troubled by the ruling and saw it as an attack on the notion of Internet freedom:
“If… sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.”
However, the chance of these convictions standing are next to nil as the judge seems to have forgotten the trumping European law that provides content hosts a safe harbor as long as they remove illegal content on receiving notification.
One could say it’s the latest elbow in the showdown between Google and European regulators regarding privacy issues, but this seems like a misguided charge by some overzealous, old-country folks. Google would be remiss not to sound the Internet freedom alarms, but it’s the Italians who have egg on their face this go-round.
Still, it’s another European headache for Google — coincidentally on the same day that the European Commission announced an antitrust probe over complaints about Google’s handling of advertising partners and ranking of search results. Mama mia!
Reader Comments.
Wow…the sentence they’ve received is just too extreme for the situation. It would warrant a public announcement/apology of some sort…but jail time?
Nah, it’s a suspended sentence, which means no one goes to jail. In other words, it’s just posturing. The judge certainly succeeded in grabbing headlines.
Its just propaganda. “Italian judge gets paid for looking after his own” Italian style. No more. If I were a judge in Italy, going against Google, …what an opportunity to boost one’s career – in your own favour!
Great example of how the internet is taking over the world. Freedom of speech. Knowledge is power. The voice of the people is becoming stronger than the voice of a nation. Ban Google from Italy? who’s gonna be loosing out?
Its like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe trying to hide his atrocities from the world. Then there was internet…
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