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Italy Sentences Google Execs in Ridiculous Invasion of Privacy Case

by Terrence O'Brien on February 24, 2010 at 12:30 PM

It appears the world has gone mad. Everyone is crying foul over China's "Great Firewall" and Iran's iron-fisted censorship, all while Australia and France are considering their own Web-filtering programs. Now Italy has successfully prosecuted its first case in an attempt to hold ISPs and user-generated content sites responsible for the material posted to them.

Three former Google executives have been sentenced to six months in prison by an Italian court for violating the privacy of a student who was bullied on camera in 2006. At the time, Google took the offending YouTube video down within hours of being notified by police, and even helped the authorities to identify the responsible students, who were eventually arrested and sentenced to community service. But that wasn't enough for the Italian government, who went on to pursue a violation of privacy charge against the Google executives for allowing the video to be posted.

Google is understandably livid about the whole thing and plans to appeal the decision. In a post on the official blog, Matt Sucherman, VP and Deputy General Counsel, called it "outrageous" that there was a trial at all and described the conviction as "astonishing." Sucherman goes on to call the decision an attack on the "very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built."

Just to make this clear for anyone who might be confused, there is now legal precedent (in Italy, anyway) for holding Web sites responsible for the acts of their users. It's a bit like suing Colt because someone robbed you while holding a gun. [From: Google, via: Engadget and Wall Street Journal]

Tags: google, google executives, GoogleExecutives, italy, law, matt sucherman, MattSucherman, privacy, top, youtube

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