September 2006 – a video recorded via a mobile phone was uploaded on Google Video. It was a video showing how a boy with Autism was bullied(mocked and pummeled)by his schoolmates at a School in Turin, Italy .
After being informed , Google removed the video from their site immediately. Google also cooperated with the Italian authorities to pin down those who are responsible for uploading such reprehensible video as well as the other individuals involved in it.
However, on February 24 in an Italian court preceded by Judge Oscar Magi, three former Google executives were convicted in absentia of privacy violations and granted a suspended six-month sentence.The ex-Google executives were senior vice-president and chief legal officer David Drummond, former Google Italy board member George De Los Reyes and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer. A fourth defendant, Arvind Desikan (Senior product marketing manager), was acquitted. All four of them have left from Google back in 2008.
Google found the decision a surprising one and said they will appeal to the court. Bill Echikson, spokesman of Google, while in the courthouse said “We are deeply troubled by this decision. It attacks the principles of freedom on which the Internet was built.”
One of the charges against the defendants if their failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. But based on the turn of events, majority of the public all over the world who closely watched the case are all intrigued of the conviction when in fact in the European Law it says that hosting providers are on a safe ground on liability issues as long as they act out and remove prohibited content upon notification of such existing subjects.
This law is definitely followed by the Google executives and even worked hand in hand to trace everyone responsible for the occurrence. Such an outraging conviction especially for the convicted Google men considering that both European Union and the Italian Law are recognizing internet service providers such as Google is not held responsible to monitor the contents which they hot but from this case they were blamed for what other people have uploaded to their site.
Fleischer, one of the convicted who is based in Paris said that it was ironic how he was found guilty for privacy violation charges when he has dedicated his career to preserve and protect personal privacy rights.
This conviction is regarded by some as a threat to net freedom. If it happened with Google, then many other similar events may come out that will hamper internet business.
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Tags: google, google employees suspended, google on court, student bullied video youtube, Web news, Youtube
First some facts!
- The video was online for about two months.
- People sent thousands of requests for removal.
- Google ignored all of them and removed the video only after a police request.
- The prosecutors accused Google of negligence.
On the other hand, any company can send a DMCA letter for a “supposed” copyright infringement and my blog is taken down immediately.
Copyright more important than personal privacy? Is this the world you want to live in?
jhavrxfgdk@nowmymail.com