A recent Italian judge convicted Google executives over a video posted on Youtube. Youtube has been bought by Google in 2006. The ruling posed a grave danger to the continued freedom and operation of internet services like YouTube, which Google bought in 2006.
Google’s deputy general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Matt Sucherman, blogged that if sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter had to approve every single piece of information that was uploaded “then the Web as we know it will cease to exist”.
Other technology experts leapt to Google’s defence. Information Officer Thomas said the ruling was akin to prosecuting the post office for hate mail. Mike Masnick, founder of technology website TechDirt, commented: “It’s hard to hear about this ruling and not consider the Italian legal system to be a joke.”
Google says that the future of websites that carry user-generated content is under threat after three of its most senior employees were convicted of breaking Italian law over a video posted on the site.
The men ended up in court because it was claimed they did not act quickly enough to take down a video that breached Italian privacy laws. The clip showed an autistic boy being bullied by four boys at a school in Turin. It was posted on Google video in September 2006 and remained on the site for two months, and even rose to number one in the most viewed section, before it was taken down following complaints.
Peter Fleischer, Google’s privacy counsel, David Drummond, the search engine’s senior vice-president and chief legal officer, and George De Los Reyes, the retired chief financial officer, all received suspended six-month sentences after being convicted in absentia of privacy violations. But all three plus a fourth defendant, product manager Arvind Desikan, were acquitted of more serious defamation charges.
Google labelled the convictions “astonishing”, “ludicrous” and “chilling” and said it would appeal. In the UK, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the case gave privacy laws a “bad name”.
This ruling effectively says that the employees of any site that carries user-generated content are effectively criminally liable for the actions of their web community,” said the search engine.
Drummond said: “If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our positions at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability.”