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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."
No kidding.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Dear Polizia,
You're a bunch of idiots.
Thanks,
-The Internet
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.
... to remove something like that.
I know this is my opinion on how hasty one ought be, but its not like Google was condoning the act or promoting the video. It seems that they were not immediately aware, and once made aware, moved quickly to make things right.
Whats the problem here? Do we all have a duty to right the wrongs of others in nanoseconds if those wrongs are somehow involved in our own publicly accessible properties? What about offensive graffiti? What about belligerent racism on a myspace comments section?
What if Italy has had a terrorist in its borders for more than 24 hours? Ought we hold them accountable for harboring terrorism due to lack of rapid response?
Che cazzo, Italia.
First of all, this sort of prosecution is likely to be immensely counterproductive. What kind of businessperson would want to travel to Italy when they prosecute individuals for supervisory responsibility of departments that have made a diligent, good faith effort to comply with the local laws from 10,000 miles away?
In addition, the modern conception of legal jurisdiction is all screwed up. Traditionally, jurisdiction comes with the territory. Physical presence in the jurisdiction is required when an essential part of the crime is committed. That is why, for example, states cannot force companies who do not have a physical presence in their state to collect sales tax on online purchases for them. The idea that you can prosecute somebody for an ordinary crime when all the relevant actions occurred outside your physical jurisdiction is a very bad precedent.
So rather than arresting visiting Google executives, if Italy feels so strongly about this, why not just shut down Google's local operations (if any), or create a national firewall and filter Google at the border? Or require ISPs to filter their entries from local DNS servers? Or threaten to do so unless Google pays some civil fine?
That's cute.
This alone makes the idea futile. To give the law any point you would need to err on the side of the most restrictive, because for any one law you could have the least restrictive be "no law at all" and thus your efforts are pointless.
Which means your laws would effectively be dictated by china and the repressive regimes of the middle east.
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 if I'm an anti-Chinese blogger that catches the ire of someone in the Chinese government... Worse, what if my words cause economic harm to China--bad for them but great for my blog... They put out an arrest warrant for me for "defaming"... Now, while I wouldn't fear extradition from the US over my freedom of speech, does this mean that I'm in danger of being extradited to China should I travel to a country that has a liberal extradition treaty with China? Sure sounds like it...
I agree with another poster--it's time for some basic "global laws." It's too bad the UN is too gridlocked and useless to prevent situations like these from happening...
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
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.
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.
Dilbert RSS feed
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.
Just because various countries are sovereign states doesn't mean it's inappropriate to criticize them if they're run by hard-right authoritarians (or hard-left authoritarians, for that matter).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
A huge proportion of censorship of, for example, literary works, was done by elected governments---Ireland's government, which has been democratic since its independence, is pretty notorious for their treatment of James Joyce's works, for example. That doesn't make it not government censorship.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
All he needs is a marker. Visit the prosecutor. Write "Peter Fleischer is a poopie head" on his desk. File a counter suit over the defamatory content written on his desk.
These kinds of criminal prosecutions are a uniquely Italian phenomenon, and I'm not surprised at all. One case I remember off the top of my head was Frank Williams, *owner* of the Williams F1 team faced criminal charges in the death of Ayrton Senna at Imola.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article1055305.ece
"law-enforcement officials in this case are overstepping their bounds"
This case reeks of political moves. Politicians so often have ulterior motives of say one thing but aiming to do another, but ultimately their ulterior motives are always directed towards one goal. They always seek ways to gain more power over others. When this case is looked at from that perspective, of finding ways to gain power and influence over others, (in this case, gaining influence over a global information gathering company) then the game they are playing becomes obvious.
All the "news" commented on here (in the GP post), about what videos Google has allowed are purely emotion generating news stories, designed to bias public opinion against Google and so gain the upper political hand in the general public perception (in their own country, as that is the power base for that government).
Milan public prosecutor Francesco Cajani and his government friends now have Google exactly where they want it. Now all they have to do is dictate the terms their government wants from Google. (Along the lines of give us this information and restrict access to that kind of information).
After all, Google wants to continue to (be allowed to) do business in Italy. Its all power moves.
It *is* wrong to use your car to hit people.
It *is* censorship to take away the video.
Regardless of the legality of the original act, it is censorship to remove the video.
When did Google remove the video, and how soon was it after receiving the request? It's hard to figure out from your post.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
You want to remove the movie from the freeway race where they drive at 160mph.
But lots of people die at 150mph, so let's remove videos of the freeway race where they drive at 140mph.
But lots of people die at 100mph, so let's remove videos of the freeway race where they drive at 100mph.
Lots of people drive in the freeway at 100mph, so let's remove those videos, too.
But lots of people die at 55mph, so let's remove videos of people driving at 55mph.
But lots of people die at 35mph, so let's remove videos of people driving at 35mph.
But lots of people die in their sleep, so let's remove videos of people sleeping.
Lots of people die when they disagree with the government, so let's remove videos of people that disagree with the government.
In this regard, USofAns are right: freedom of speech is freedom of speech, and it's all or nothing. When you take out _one_ of the videos, you usually open the door for someone dictating the tone.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048