Google Execs Wrongly Convicted by Italian Court Over an Uploaded Video

Posted by Raymond on February 26, 2010

From ZDNet:

Every once in a while, you come across a story that makes you shake your head in disbelief.

Today, that story comes out of Milan, Italy, where a judge has convicted two Google employees and a former employee for non-compliance of the Italian privacy code over a video that was uploaded to Google Video in late 2006. A fourth employee also faced charges but was not convicted.

In the video, students filmed and uploaded a clip of them bullying an autistic classmate, a clip that Google called “totally reprehensible” in a blog post this morning. Google said it took down the clip within hours of being notified about it by Italian authorities, In addition, the company worked with local police to identify the person who uploaded the video and that those involved were held accountable for their actions.

No one at Google had anything to do with that video, aside from taking it down. No one at Google appeared in it, filmed it, uploaded it or reviewed it. In fact, the company said, none of the four even knew about the video until after it was removed. Still, the courts held them responsible.

Google is, of course, appealing this “astonishing decision.” But that’s not the bigger issue, With its ruling, the Italian courts are basically holding hosting platforms – like Google Video – criminally responsible for the content that users upload.

[Read more at ZDNet]