Italian Prosecutors Seek Prison Sentences For Google Execs 197
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."
Morons (Score:5, Informative)
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:
Peter Fleischer's blog on this... (Score:5, Informative)
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/ciao-italia.html [blogspot.com]
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/today-in-milan.html [blogspot.com]
http://peterfleischer.blogspot.com/2009/11/european-law-on-hosting-platforms.html [blogspot.com]
This last one actually has law information in it.
Re:I hope that the primary focus of the prosecutio (Score:2, Informative)
Extradition? These are Google employees based in Italy.
e-commerce directive say they go free (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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:Ironic (Score:2, Informative)
you're way off, man
the name Torino comes from the ancient roman name Augusta Taurinorum and the latin root for Taurinorum means nothing like "cliff" or "crag" but is tied to the population (Taurini) that lived there before Julius Caesar conquered their city.
Also "taurus" is the latin word for "bull".
And, as far as i know, there were no mass infanticide in that city either.
THIS IS TUUUUUUUUUUURIN!!! (not Sparta :))
Re:Ironic (Score:2, Informative)
just read the homo sapiens etymology at http://www.eco-pros.com/biodiversity.htm (around the end):
<Scientific name: Homo sapiens translates from Latin as Homo (self, man or human being), sapiens (wise, knowing). The Latin "homo" is related to the word "humus" earth, and could be viewed as a kind of "earthling.">
at least wikipedia got it right:
In the first century BC (probably 28 BC), the Romans created a military camp (Castra Taurinorum), later dedicated to Augustus (Augusta Taurinorum). The typical Roman street grid can still be seen in the modern city. Turin reached about 5,000 inhabitants at the time, all living inside the high walls.
And Taurinorum comes from "Taurasia", a somewhat legendary barbaric village thought to be burned down by Hannibale coming to Italy, as the "Tauri" people, for which it was the capital, refused to surrender to him. It was later reconstructed as Castra Taurinorum.
History is hard, so please don't try it at home, kids.
Re:I'm sure glad (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ironic (Score:4, Informative)
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:e-commerce directive say they go free (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What is the deal here? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ironic (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the movie is not complete fiction. Greatly exaggerated, but not complete fiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae [wikipedia.org] is pretty interesting reading.
Re:The law can multi-task (Score:3, Informative)
I will admit that what worries me more is that to far too many Slashdot posters the "really guilty party" can't be the geek, no matter what the charge.
How about we just look at this case, where google had nothing to do with the assault or the video, other than providing a venue where people could post any video? Google removed the video as soon as they received a complaint. I'd still like to know how Google violated a law here.
From the article:
The delay in removing the offensive video was the result of a failure to apply to the right authority, Pisapia said. When the complaint reached Google Inc., which controlled Google Video, the video was removed within hours, he said. "The first complaint went to the wrong address, so the people who had the power to remove it were unaware of the problem." Italian law does not lay any responsibility on hosting providers to monitor the content they upload onto Internet, Pisapia said. "Their only responsibility, established under a 2003 law, is to remove content when ordered to do so by the judicial authorities."
Re:I am Italian - It's not about bullies. (Score:3, Informative)
Yet, those very corrupt politicians are pushing the "fast trial" reform, which will cancel this trial, since the facts date back to 2006.
Under the proposed (and likely going to be approved, unless they figure out something worse) fast-trial law, any trial lasting more than 2 years (counting from end of investigations) in any of the three degrees of appeal of the Italian justice system will be considered a mistrial. The average duration of a trial is currently 7 and a half years, you do the math.
The reason is to avoid Berlusconi from being found guilty in an open-and-shut witness-corruption case he has been dragging for months.