Italian Court Convicts Google Employees Over Google Video
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
So by that logic Google is going to have to watch out for child porn cases from Italy too now? I mean, other people are responsible for the disgusting act but those Google execs in their infinite power and wisdom should be able to stop all of them. And don't get me started on when they're asked to take them down. I'm sure that someone in the company has to take a look at the site to verify the claim that it's illegal, and when they do that makes them a paedophile right? Fucking retarded Italian legal system.
Of the four executives on trial, David Drummond, chairman of the board of Google Italy at the time; George De Los Reyes, then a board member who has since left the firm; and Peter Fleischer, who was responsible for privacy issues, were convicted for violation of privacy. Arvind Desikan, who was in charge of the video section at the time, was acquitted of all charges.
Taken from another news site:far_wanderer said:
Of the four executives on trial, David Drummond, chairman of the board of Google Italy at the time; George De Los Reyes, then a board member who has since left the firm; and Peter Fleischer, who was responsible for privacy issues, were convicted for violation of privacy. Arvind Desikan, who was in charge of the video section at the time, was acquitted of all charges.
Ok. Why have the courts convicted these unrelated guys? Oh wait it's Italy. There must be some sort of patsy law allowing you to let someone else take the blame for your crimes.
Do some reading on the legal system in Italy, it would be a great comedy were it not for all the people's lives on the line.Amnestic said:
One thing that seems to be escaping (no pun intended) everyone here is that this took place in Italy, under Italian laws, and I believe that the Google Employees in question where also Italian. While I agree that there doesn't seem any logic in prosecuting this, and even less sense in convicting these individuals, they may have violated Italian law.
This should serve as a reminder to us all, that any intrusion on our rights for whatever reason can (and likely will) have unintended consequences. Having a law that safeguards your privacy from malicious publishing of photos or videos may sound like a good idea, however the unintended consequences may be just like the situation we are now seeing in Italy.
This should serve as a reminder to us all, that any intrusion on our rights for whatever reason can (and likely will) have unintended consequences. Having a law that safeguards your privacy from malicious publishing of photos or videos may sound like a good idea, however the unintended consequences may be just like the situation we are now seeing in Italy.
Hi everyone! I'm from Italy (so please keep that in mind before judging my english!!) AND an internet user so I think i can explain some of the details of this story.
I can tell you that the reasons behind this court sentence will be of public knowledge 90 days after the date of the sentence itself. So for the people who asked "why?" well, we'll have to wait 90 days before knowing what the thoughts of the judge were.
From italian newspapers and internet news sites, i can read that the judge, during the discussion, asked to Google why it does not protect the privacy of the people it shows around on its site (i know it's not google or youtube that actually posted or made the video, i'm just explaining!). Furhtermore, the judge has noted that the video stayed for many weeks on top of the "funniest video" ranking, so it might also be that his reasoning is that google couldn't have noticed that one of his video getting the most hits was not exactly something to show around, but i'm just speculating.
Please also note that recently mr. Berlusconi's government is discussing a law that will held responsible a website (like google, youtube, newspapers' sites, but also indipendent blogs) for EVERYTHING that is published on them, including forum posts and comments, so one can also speculate that this sentence has somewhat being influenced by the political situation here.
My 2 cents, by the way, are that Italy is going down a very very un-democratic road, we're currently aimed at "Cuba-like fascist paradise", with "banana-republic" flavour.
I have just one request: don't think every Italian is a stupid or a fascist.. You're just watching Berlusconi!
edit: the employees have been sentenced to 6 months of reclusion, but don't be fooled: in Italy no one actually ends in prison for sentences lesser than 3 years of reclusion, because you can swap that with fees, or public work, or just benefit from various discounts of guilt.
edit2: nobody got any money from this sentence, because the family of the guy offended dropped the charge midway in the process, while a couple of down-associations continued but were not seen as actually damaged by the video.
I can tell you that the reasons behind this court sentence will be of public knowledge 90 days after the date of the sentence itself. So for the people who asked "why?" well, we'll have to wait 90 days before knowing what the thoughts of the judge were.
From italian newspapers and internet news sites, i can read that the judge, during the discussion, asked to Google why it does not protect the privacy of the people it shows around on its site (i know it's not google or youtube that actually posted or made the video, i'm just explaining!). Furhtermore, the judge has noted that the video stayed for many weeks on top of the "funniest video" ranking, so it might also be that his reasoning is that google couldn't have noticed that one of his video getting the most hits was not exactly something to show around, but i'm just speculating.
Please also note that recently mr. Berlusconi's government is discussing a law that will held responsible a website (like google, youtube, newspapers' sites, but also indipendent blogs) for EVERYTHING that is published on them, including forum posts and comments, so one can also speculate that this sentence has somewhat being influenced by the political situation here.
My 2 cents, by the way, are that Italy is going down a very very un-democratic road, we're currently aimed at "Cuba-like fascist paradise", with "banana-republic" flavour.
I have just one request: don't think every Italian is a stupid or a fascist.. You're just watching Berlusconi!
edit: the employees have been sentenced to 6 months of reclusion, but don't be fooled: in Italy no one actually ends in prison for sentences lesser than 3 years of reclusion, because you can swap that with fees, or public work, or just benefit from various discounts of guilt.
edit2: nobody got any money from this sentence, because the family of the guy offended dropped the charge midway in the process, while a couple of down-associations continued but were not seen as actually damaged by the video.
Hey, someone likes something that I wrote!DJPirtu said:
I think the prosecutors probably brought up something about a company being responsible about what goes on within its jurisdiction, but there would have had to be some kind of precedent from a non-web service case. I wounder what that was and if we'll ever get to find out.
Thank you for that, it makes a bit more sense now.Alpha1089 said:
It's interesting, the News Hour on PBS also covered this story in a quick blurb, and according to their report the case wasn't about the offensive content of the video, but was instead about the violation of the privacy of the kid who was being teased.
What... The... Hell.
This is like suing a motel for renting a room out to a on the run felon.
Motel didnt know he was on the run, just provided a service.
This is like suing a motel for renting a room out to a on the run felon.
Motel didnt know he was on the run, just provided a service.
Thanks for this.scurofiamma said:
It really helps clear things up to have a local interpretation of the story, it doesn't seem quite so ridiculous once you realise Google proclaimed the video to be the funniest video for weeks, and the judge has noticed this.
Really, any company like Google should be responsible for what they're proclaiming to be the funniest video for a couple of weeks running.
If it's a statistics macro or program which is really to blame, then hopefully this will cause them to change their procedures and vet all their most popular videos.
Also, it's interesting that this seems to be caught up in internal Italian politics, and that it's being thrust into the limelight as a political scapegoat more than anything else.
Why am I not surprised that this has come from an Italian court?
I'm cool with Italians in general but their legal system sucks balls.
BTW, I'm going to call the police and make some bogus bomb threats, but don't worry, I can just blame the telephone company, they should have been listening in to make sure I don't break the law.
And THIS is how Big Brother will work in the 21's century, with an Objectivist free market spin where the omnipotent corporations will be used to uphold the draconian laws of failing governments.
In many ways those bastards posting that video was a GOOD thing, sure a couple dozen people saw it (though thousands more saw the clip when it was broadcast on news networks around the world) but this shameless posting of the bullying made it possible to track down and prosecute the abusers whereas if it had gone un-filmed likely no prosecution could have ever come about.
I'm cool with Italians in general but their legal system sucks balls.
BTW, I'm going to call the police and make some bogus bomb threats, but don't worry, I can just blame the telephone company, they should have been listening in to make sure I don't break the law.
And THIS is how Big Brother will work in the 21's century, with an Objectivist free market spin where the omnipotent corporations will be used to uphold the draconian laws of failing governments.
In many ways those bastards posting that video was a GOOD thing, sure a couple dozen people saw it (though thousands more saw the clip when it was broadcast on news networks around the world) but this shameless posting of the bullying made it possible to track down and prosecute the abusers whereas if it had gone un-filmed likely no prosecution could have ever come about.
Wait on what grounds could they be criminally liable? i need to know how the facts presented themselves for these 3 of 4 convicted employees. The fact they complied and took down the video isnt good enough?
Italy the next great nanny state of the world!
Italy the next great nanny state of the world!
On an unrelated topic, italian biggest phone company is currently under process for spying (sigh!) on some thousands of peoples' calls..Treblaine said:
I think it's probably cheaper for google to press on with the italian legal system than to lose some days of revenue from their actual job on a national scale.. Also italian people would just note the malfunction of google, not their feeling of injustice, because it's not like this story ever got to evening television news!Nimbus said:
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I think it's always nice to have an insight from 'real people'.. The same could be told for the kind of "news" we get here in europe about U.S.A. and other prominent countries.. By myself i can say that hadn't i an internet connection, my thoughts and points of view on the world would be *really* different. I think the most important lesson in this whole "googlegate" is that the way you tell a news makes up for at least 80% of the reaction people will have hearing about it.. power of the media?Jamash said:
Another thought i'd like to express is that i see many user just don't seem to reconnect with italian laws (probably an opinion formed on a series of "heard-of" past sentences?). The point is that italian (or let's call it "roman") legal system is not built around a jury or a judge who can express not only the law but also the common sense; italian legal system instead sees his judges as mere "readers" of the law, not interpreters. Being it so, even if italian privacy law has flaws that make it absurd to apply to internet-based content (like youtube or whatelse, because of the extremely free approach typical of the 'net), and even if the judge sees and understands this absurdity, he is forced to just apply the law - as written.
This is probably a longer version of "italian legal system sucks balls"
