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Google Privacy Counsel Facing Criminal Charges
ProfJonathan writes "According to a story in the IAPP's Privacy Advisor, Google's Paris-based global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, is facing criminal charges in Italy for defamation based upon a user's posting of a video to Google Video. Mr. Fleischer was on his way to the University of Milan for a speaking engagement when he was met by Italian law enforcement officials. As with the 1997 case of Compuserve's Felix Somm and the 2006 arrest in Texas of BetOnSportsUK's CEO during a layover on a trip to Costa Rica, this case once again highlights the risks faced by executives and employees of online companies whose activities may be legal and protected in their own countries, but illegal elsewhere in the world. Troubling, and worth watching."
If you want to know what the content is without watching the video, FTFA:
The charges follow a two-year investigation by Italian authorities into footage uploaded onto Google Video that showed a disabled teen being disparaged by peers.
What actions? Some idiots uploaded a illegal video, the Italian Interior Minister sent Google a complain about it, and Google removed the video less than 24 hours after the complain. Well within the EU law.
Even someone is acting "badly" is the Italian prosecutor, which is clear trying to "fight" foreign/big companies for self/government publicity.
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The case you are referencing is entirely different. Carruthers and Kaplan attempted to open and advertise direct routes for Americans to circumvent U.S. law. Further more, both made statements publicly that they were aware of the illegality of their actions.
Carruthers was hung out to dry by his own cronies and Kaplan muscled by his own as well because his past criminal activities were drawing heat to a fast growing online company.
Neither the Elcomsoft or the Google case share anything in common with the case you referenced.
To ensure you don't split that hair you are worried about not splitting, it's not your definition they'll be using.
The definition I know of is: "operators of electronic communications networks and services". In other words, if you provide a service, such as YouTube. You are an ISP.
And the USA claims that it wants all of that information about who is on airplanes in its airspace so that it can combat terrorism. If they knew about him on a simple stop over then it seems that there is a lot of 'mission creep' on the use of passenger information.