Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie - George Orwell
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Google will appeal Italian ruling
VIDEO DISTRIBUTOR Google is planning to appeal today's Italian court ruling that found three employees guilty of failure to comply with Italian privacy laws.
The whole sorry saga revolves around a video that featured schoolkids bullying an autistic child. The video was uploaded and then taken down in a matter of hours. To Google's credit it worked with the local authorities to find the perpetrator and the girl who uploaded the video received 10 months community service for her actions.
So you might understand Google's dismay that four employees were indicted on charges of criminal defamation and failure to comply with Italian privacy laws. All four were found not guilty of criminal deformation, with three found to have fallen afoul of the privacy statutes.
The problem is that none of the four who were indicted had anything to do with the offending video. They weren't involved in the making, uploading or reviewing procedures and according to Google, weren't even aware of its existence until after it was removed from the company's video sharing site.
However Google says this ruling could have wider implications for the web in Italy. Currently hosting platforms that comply with laws of the land are generally left undisturbed by the authorities. The firms that usually end up in hot water resist the "cease and desist" orders that have become infamous in recent privacy battles. In this case it seems Google actually went out of its way to help the local authorities and even then four people whose only crime it seems was to work for the company that hosted the video for a few hours were found guilty by an Italian court.
Google says it will "vigorously appeal" the decision. Both Google and Italian content providers are no doubt hoping that common sense will eventually prevail. µ
Tags: Google
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Let us get this into perspective Google are do a lot more good than are doing any damage, this is an isolated case which must not be allowed to effect freedom of interaction. The footage was posted in September 2006 so why wait such a long time?
How can you possibly expect them to monitor every singe upload, which is physically impossible given the scale of Google’s operation?
Google are constantly under attack from all directions just as they were accused by
News Corp when in fact Google drives traffic to Murdoch’s sites.
Next they wanted to close down Google Street View this is a very highly valuable piece of IT Software that both the public and businesses can use to display specific areas especially Estate Agents to give their clients a good idea as to areas specific.
If we carry on with PC Correctness at this hideous level, you won’t be able to take even your own holiday snaps in this ever-increasing ‘Global Police State’.
Signed Carl Barron Chairman of agpcuk
What would it be like to be a postman in Italy?
.. if this has anything to do with the way Italy are trying to control the way content on the Net is distributed within their borders?
about: "The video was uploaded and then taken down in a matter of hours"
the video was charged on the 8 of september 2006, and taken down the 7 of november... u reported only the point of view of google press office...
Can you clarify how long the video was on the site for, please. Because I've read in the newspapers that it was on the site for two months before it was taken down (which was a matter of hours after the police informed Google that it was bad).