Italy has condemned three managers of Google

[ArtphotoasiA]

Hi there...here is the big news..... just want let you know as I'm in Italy

The Court of Milan in Italy has condemned three managers of Google accused of defamation and not respect of privacy because in 2006 they have not prevented the publication on Google of a video where four students from a technical institute insulted and beaten a guy affected by down’s syndrome.

In particular the court sentenced to six months in prison two managers and the former President of the Board of Google Italy. The three were sentenced for the head of imputation of violation of privacy but not for the head of imputation of defamation.

Just to set some schedule time… the video with the harassment to they guy affected by down’s syndrome was shot by the four students in May 2006, then loaded on Google video on 8 September, where with a huge amount of clicks it remained in the top section until 7 November.

The centre of this process was the protection of the person, the protection of privacy. The rest is a fact itself, is the first criminal case also at international level that sees charged responsible of Google for the publication of content on the web. In recent hearings the family of minor with disability had withdrawn its lawsuit against the leaders of Google.

Google has clarified that will call “against that decision which we believe to say the least surprising, since that our colleagues have had nothing to do with the video in question, since they have not turned, they have not loaded, they have not seen”.
For the spokesman of Google “if this principle is less, falls for the possibility to offer services on the Internet”.

[BestJewSinceJC]

And they are absolutely right. If you cannot offer services on the internet that are harmless in concept, but subject to abuse, then you cannot offer the same level of service and the same experience to your customers. No one can be reasonably held accountable for something like that when they have methods for reporting offensive material. It could only be considered negligence if there was no reasonable solution.

[ArtphotoasiA]

I agree .... and...

This kind of things should not happen... broadcasting or not... SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.

The new generation here in Italy is totally rotten believe me.... and is not their fault all the system must be blamed as does not offer anymore the most important thing in life for a young man... dreams.

[jwenting]

The content involved was illegal under Italian law, so they were convicted of distributing illegal material.
Same way a person hosting a website that distributes child porn can and should be held criminally liable for that.

Whether in this case the content should have been illegal is another question, not whether the persons responsible for its distribution should be held responsible for that distribution.

[ArtphotoasiA]

Good points........ regretfully they are in the situation that ALSO if the want check all what the users submit is just IMPOSSIBLE.

Social networks and aggregators have no control whatsoever on the material there.... is this something good?

[jwenting]

It's tricky. I moderate one photography related website, and as mods we have guidelines as to what's allowed and not.
I assume youtube and similar sites have teams like that as well.
Of course something can slip through the cracks, but we can assume that anything blatantly illegal like this is going to go viral (nastiness always does), which could be a good trigger for auto-forwarding it to moderation.

[Salem]

What about the other case then?

You know, the one where the bullies who managed to incriminate themselves got prosecuted.
Were they charged with violation of privacy, or just regular physical assault?

It's hard to find out, because without the "google" tag, this isn't anything like international news.

For example, did any of this happen before google got the takedown notice?
- were they caught?
- were they questioned?
- were they prosecuted?
- were they jailed?

If any of this happened before the takedown notice, did anybody bother to ask "OK punk, what's the password to your youtube account?".
Like I said, if this was known to the Italian judiciary before hand, then they would be just as culpable (if not more so).
It's the whole "What did they know, and when did they know it" thing!

In next week's news, more google execs in trouble because they've been issued a subpoena to release the video of some other twit incriminating themselves on youtube, because they took it down TOO SOON.
Some days, it's just hard to break even.

> I assume youtube and similar sites have teams like that as well.
YouTube Upload Rate Reaches 20 Hours/Minute (and that was the middle of last year).
That's 1200 people to review everything in real time.
And since no-one can do that for 24 hours (probably a couple of hours at most before burnout), you're looking at 10K+ people employed just to watch.

But to even try opens up a new can of worms. Execs can still wind up in court (only this time it's more serious) because something got through which someone, somewhere else in a completely different jurisdiction, didn't like the look of it.
Failure to ensure the "service" is up to standard is usually regarded as being more serious than simply not providing it at all.

[jwenting]

the bullies (if caught) would likely be handled unde juvenile law and sent home with a warning to never do it again if Italian law is anything like Dutch law.

[vegaseat]

Someone at Google forgot to hand over the envelope of cash to make Italian justice work better.

[jwenting]

Italian justice system has learned to not be corrupt. Had to deal with the Mafia for decades.
Maybe Google didn't realise that and tried to bribe a judge...

[ArtphotoasiA]

I do not think so... but the system is anyway rotten....

[Lardmeister]

Italian justice system has learned to not be corrupt. Had to deal with the Mafia for decades.
Maybe Google didn't realise that and tried to bribe a judge...

Ah, they learned the trade from the best in the field!