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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."
It sucks for those that get arrested, but eventually things will get to the point where people/companies avoid travel to countries with such restrictive laws. That in turn will cut down on business deals and partnerships, etc. The countries will pay for these laws economically.
(On a similar note, the US is probably going to suffer based on the increasing issues with travel in the "Post 911 World.")
Think Deeply.
But we already knew about the criminal charges
So here's the story...
1. Italy announces criminal charges against Google exec.
2. Google exec goes to Italy.
3. Google exec gets arrested.
I'm not sure who is stupider, the Italian prosecutor for bringing this case, or the guy who went to a country where there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
The Polizia were just following the orders of a local prosecutor who decided he's going to split hairs on Google's legal status. Apparently "Internet Service Providers" are not responsible for what third parties post on their sites, but "Internet Content Providers" are. While most believe Google qualifies as an ISP (instead of an ICP) under the EU and Italian safe harbor laws, this local prosecutor doesn't.
Basically an asshole Italian prosecutor trying to pull off a high-profile publicity stunt to get him the name recognition to jump to a higher elected office. This is like Elliott Spitzer, the crusading Attorney General of New York who parlayed a number of high-profile prosecutions into a successful bid to become Governor... then pissed it all away, but that's another story.
The prosecutor's an asshole, and if there is justice in the world, he'll end up disgraced and out of a job instead of benefitting from wasting everyone's time to aggrandize himself.
Start a happiness pandemic
Because the criticism has nothing to do with the topic; it was posted purely because of somebody's personal crusade against google. If the poster had actually pointed out something google did wrong in regards to the case we're discussing, it would probably be informative.
In a discussion about IBM patents, for instance, a post bitching about IBM selling equipment to Germany before WWII is a troll. A post bitching about IBM not creating significant new technological advances is on topic, and might be informative or insightful.
Really?
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Not to split hair, but I don't think Google is providing Internet access to local users, which is my definition of an ISP. Rather, it's storing content (videos) on Google Video. That would qualify them in my book as an ICP.
Does that justify a lawsuit and an arrest? I disagree with the law on content providers but I can see why some countries don't accept freedom of speech as an absolute value and want to put some restrictions on it (hate speech being an example).
I'm not sure who is stupider, the Italian prosecutor for bringing this case, or the guy who went to a country where there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
The latter.
It's about time Americans realised that the rest of the world is comprised of sovereign states not subject to their jurisdiction. I consider this a bit of a trivial case, but there are much more extreme manifestations of this attitude, such as rendition and detention without charge.
It's not an acceptable excuse to say "it's OK for us to do it because we're the Good Guys", because much of the world has good reason to doubt that.
If I were Google, I would respond to this by immediately removing access to Google Video and Youtube from all Italian IP addresses, citing the trial. If I were Google and I was vindictive, I would also remove access to Google.com Google Maps (iPhone users are probably influential in Italy) and GMail.
It would be the over-reacting response to this over-reacting lawsuit which would cause a crisis far greater than necessary, but it would show the world how ridiculous the response would need to be to prevent such lawsuits. I mean - GMail - you can insult someone from there, right? Google.com - you can search insults from there, right?
So to be cautious, they'd just have to turn off those services while this lawsuit was pending.
What next ? Playboy employees getting jailed in $MIDDLE_EASTERN_COMPANY ? What about anyone who uploaded racy pictures of themselves on the internet ? After all this could corrupt the morally pious people in the rest of the world!! Bahrain is a common stop over on flights to Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand etc. - So would you consider it fair for vacationing Americans to get arrested on flights through the country ?
Not that I think Bahrain will ever do it - Whenever I stopped there, I found the airport employees to be friendly and ready to help (even if not exactly the best informed), But they do have laws on the books if they ever needed to arrest anyone in USA.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2