Italy's Google Miscarriage
Authored on February 26, 2010 – Wall Street Journal
Opinion Journal
In the annals of judicial folly, a place of honor ought to be reserved for this week's conviction of three Google executives by an Italian court. Their crimes, apparently, included a failure of clairvoyance and an inability to time-travel.
The case involved a video clip shot by some depraved Italian teens who beat up a Down syndrome child, recorded the deed and uploaded it to the Web. When the video, which was posted on Google's now-defunct Google Video service, was reported, Google promptly took it down and assisted the Italian police in apprehending the thugs.
For their trouble, four Google executives—none of whom were even aware of the video's existence until it was taken down—were charged with violating the privacy of the beaten-up boy and with "criminal defamation," a considerably more serious charge. All four were acquitted on the defamation charge, but three were convicted of the privacy violation and given six-month suspended sentences.
It's hard to see what interest of justice is served by holding Google's employees responsible for the actions of others. Under European Union law, Web hosting companies are meant to have a safe harbor against culpability for content posted to their sites by outside users, and this gives Google solid grounds for appeal.
The criminals here are those who committed the assault and filmed and posted it—and they've been brought to justice already. Prosecuting Google employees because they couldn't know in advance what might be uploaded, or go back in time to un-post the video, is crazy even for Italy.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14
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4 comments:
A good follow up and deeper discussion of the EU v US privacy discrepancy here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/weekinreview/28liptak.html?ref=technology
Also, Italy is apparently generally adverse towards the internet. Here is additional interesting news:
"Italy appears to be unfriendly to the Internet: Broadband is not easily available in parts of the country, and the law requires users to show an ID before getting access at WiFi hot spots.
The ruling against Google came just as the Italian government is about to introduce a decree that would give the state control over online video content — the toughest Internet regulations in Europe.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi owns the biggest private TV conglomerate in Italy.
Google has been hit with a lawsuit for copyright infringement from Berlusconi's company Mediaset, which is seeking nearly $800 million in damages."
More can be found here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124068000
Google already has the technology to block access to content based on content: http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/02/17/google-locationbased-content-filter-patent/
If there continues to be significant disuniformity in privacy, defamation, and IP laws, this technology might become increasingly important.
It's not clear why any search engine or content aggregater would continue to operate in Italy.
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