The Italian legal system today faces charges of being an absolute joke. Not only were Google executives brought to trial over a UGC video that had nothing directly to do with them, they’ve now been convicted of breaking Italian privacy laws. Absolute bunkum.
Google Video Upload
In 2006, before Google acquired YouTube, a short video appeared on the now-defunct Google Video showing a disabled teenager being bullied by a group of his peers. One of the teenagers had uploaded the video, which remained on the site for a couple of months until complaints were received.
At that point, Google removed the video as fast as it could, and helped the Italian police track down the people responsible. The female uploader and several of her classmates were sentenced to 10 months community service.
That surely should have been the end of this sorry story, but it wasn’t.
Google Execs Charged
In July 2008, four Google executives were charged with criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. All over a video that had nothing whatsoever to do with any of them. They merely worked for the company which hosted the video online.
Italian prosecutors then spent more than a year building a case against the quartet before the trial began in October 2009, with reports in November suggesting that jail time was being sought.
Google Execs Convicted
The verdict was announced this morning, and while all four of the men on trial were absolved of the defamation claim, three were convicted of bypassing Italian privacy laws.
The three convicted men, David Drummond, Peter Fleischer, and George Reyes have each received a suspended six-month sentence.
Google has responded to this verdict and sentencing in a vitriolic blog post, stating:
“In essence this ruling means that employees of hosting platforms like Google Video are criminally responsible for content that users upload.”
“It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming.”
And I have to agree. This verdict is complete nonsense and would appear to go against established European Union laws which state that companies hosting content have a safe harbor so long as content found to be illegal is removed upon request. Which it clearly was in this case.
The Future For YouTube?
This verdict, if upheld on appeal, could be very serious for Google, YouTube, and all content-hosting companies in Italy, Europe, and beyond. As it implies they are responsible for the content being uploaded at all time, no matter what action is taken after the event.
For YouTube specifically, this kind of case could only be prevented in the future by all UGC videos being moderated before they appear on the site. Which, with 20 hours of video uploaded every minute worldwide, would be a near-impossible task.
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