Four Google Officials Facing Charges In Italy For Errant Video

mikesd81 writes to tell us that four Google employees may be facing charges of defamation and failure to control personal data simply because they didn't remove a video of a boy with Down's Syndrome being harassed and eventually hit over the head with a box of tissue, from Google Video. The video was posted in September of 2006 and was removed by Google within a day of receiving the initial complaints, but apparently that isn't fast enough. "Google maintains charges against the employees are unwarranted, Pancini said. Europe's E-commerce Directive exempts service providers from prescreening content before it is publicly posted, he said. Also, the video was technically uploaded to a Google server in the US, not in Italy, Pancini said. 'It was a terrible video,' Pancini said, adding that Google is concerned about the case's impact on censorship on the Internet. The defendants include David C. Drummond, a Google senior vice president, corporate development and chief legal officer. Pancini said Drummond did paperwork to create Google Italy, but has never lived in the country."

Comments

Anyone else getting sick and tired of "advocacy?"

[MikeRT]

I swear, it needs to become harder for people to form not-for-profit corporations and become "advocates" and activists. Too often such groups are good for nothing other than raising a stink over nothing, suing others, acting in petty, partisan ways, etc.

Are they vital to democracy? No. In fact, one of the things that such groups often make increasingly clear today is that they are enemies of liberty. It's one thing to protect everyone's right to speak their opinion (freedom of speech and freedom of the press). It's quite another for the law to make it easy to form tax-free organizations that exist entirely for the typically asinine purposes that most non-profits serve.

These people need to get lives and a real job doing something of value in the economy instead.

Re:Prosecutors in Italy are stupid...

[EastCoastSurfer]

Well, thank god that never happens in the USA!

Well Obama is promising for the US to be more like Europe...

This is Rather Ridiculous, but is Silver-Lined

[Colonel Korn]

It's a rather outrageous case, and we all know it. Still, there's a certain satisfaction in seeing Google execs suffer for any reason. I imagine I'd feel the same way if W went to Singapore, gave his secret service buddy a stick of gum that was later spit onto the sidewalk, and got caned.