Italian Prosecutors Seek Prison Sentences For Google Execs

angry tapir writes "Milan prosecutors have sought prison sentences ranging from six months to one year for four Google executives accused of violating Italy's privacy laws over the posting of a video showing the bullying of a handicapped teenage boy. The prosecutor's request was backed up by a request by lawyers representing the Milan city council for €300,000 (US$452,000) in moral and material damages. The case concerns the posting on Google Video of a three-minute mobile-phone video showing a handicapped boy being tormented by his classmates in a Turin school."

Comments

Morons

[multisync]

Punish the kids who were doing the harassing. Google removed the video within a day, once someone actually bothered to contact them about it, and Google cooperated with Italian police:

The prosecutors had also failed to acknowledge Google's cooperation with the Italian police, Pisapia said. The bullying of the handicapped boy, which had been going on for two years, came to an end after Google identified the person responsible for posting the video and enabled the police to identify the boy's tormentors, he said.

Peter Fleischer's blog on this...

[bahbar]

He's been commenting on the case itself a little bit here:
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/ciao-italia.html
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/today-in-milan.html
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/european-law-on-hosting-platforms.html
This last one actually has law information in it.

e-commerce directive say they go free

[lordholm]

Since Italy is in the EU, they are bound by the directive of e-commerse, especially articles 14 (hosting) and 15 (no obligation to monitor) are important:

Article 14 Hosting
1. Where an information society service is provided that consists of the storage of information provided by a recipient of the service, Member States shall ensure that the service provider is not liable for the information stored at the request of a recipient of the service, on condition that: (a) the provider does not have actual knowledge of illegal activity or information and, as regards claims for damages, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which the illegal activity or information is apparent; or (b) the provider, upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the information.
2. Paragraph 1 shall not apply when the recipient of the service is acting under the authority or the control of the provider.
3. This Article shall not affect the possibility for a court or administrative authority, in accordance with Member States' legal systems, of requiring the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement, nor does it affect the possibility for Member States of establishing procedures governing the removal or disabling of access to information.

Article 15 No general obligation to monitor
1. Member States shall not impose a general obligation on providers, when providing the services covered by Articles 12, 13 and 14, to monitor the information which they transmit or store, nor a general obligation actively to seek facts or circumstances indicating illegal activity.
2. Member States may establish obligations for information society service providers promptly to inform the competent public authorities of alleged illegal activities undertaken or information provided by recipients of their service or obligations to communicate to the competent authorities, at their request, information enabling the identification of recipients of their service with whom they have storage agreements.

There is no discussion about it, they cannot be found guilty under EU legislation, and if Italy still sentences them, the Italian government can be dragged into the European court of justice, where they will most likely be found to be in violation of the e-commerce directive.

Re:I'm sure glad

[sznupi]

Not the only time in Italy - media empire of Berlusconi pointing fingers at external factors, the deal with crosses being obviously the fault of Strasburg and not a case of not following your own damn laws, season immigrants from new EU memberstates being put effectively into slavery because of their own fault of not being able to prevent it...it's always easier to look for blame abroad.

And when you do you actually get to win the popularity contest...

Re:I'm sure glad

[Shin-LaC]

As stated in comments on the previous Slashdot post on the case, the perpetrators were already prosecuted in 2006.

Re:Ironic

[peppepz]

Also Ironic, that they haven't actually done anything about the incident, to make sure the kid is okay;

Yes, they did: the bullies have been suspended from school and assigned to community service.
On the penal side, they're accused of private violence, insult, defamation, assault and menaces.

It is interesting to note that the kid's family withdrew the suit against Google, and the trial is now going on only because other parties enlisted themselves as "civil parties" (that is, victims of a crime who are seeking for a refund - sorry, I don't know the exact english term for that).

Re:What is the deal here?

[canajin56]

As I recall, Google pulled the video within an hour of being notified it was even posted, and identified for police the IP address of the poster, allowing them to catch the actual bullies. The prosecutor is hoping to springboard into real politics by making a name for himself as the man who takes on big evil corporations, and the fact that they did everything right, and broke now laws, and cooperated with police extremely promptly, none of that matters.