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."
I'm sure glad (Score:5, Insightful)
that those Italian prosecutors are going after the really guilty parties instead of the little, misguided tykes who perpetrated the incident.
Re:I'm sure glad (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, what about the person that uploaded the video? They would seem to be the main culprit to me, not Google.
Re:I'm sure glad (Score:5, Funny)
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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...
Media empire owned by a dictator (Score:4, Insightful)
An example of the abuse of his media empire: http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/10/italy-the-latest-fashion-%E2%80%93-blue-socks-against-berlusconi/ [csmonitor.com]
It sounds stupid, and it really is... but this is the only country in Europe where politicians can get away with smear campaigns, and only because this politician owns or influences most media in the country.
Something a little more scary is the immunity Berlusconi gave himself to prevent any convictions of his crimes... but that was ruled unconstitutional: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8295716.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:I'm sure glad (Score:5, Insightful)
In recent news, leaders of the BBC were jailed for showing footage of a warzone during a news report. Obviously, they must be entirely responsible for this war.
Also, it has just been discovered that if you hide a problem, it goes away.
Re:I'm sure glad (Score:5, Informative)
The law can multi-task (Score:2)
that those Italian prosecutors are going after the really guilty parties instead of the little, misguided tykes who perpetrated the incident.
What makes you think that the prosecutors aren't going after everyone involved?
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.
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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."
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I hope that the primary focus of the prosecution (Score:5, Insightful)
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Extradition? These are Google employees based in Italy.
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Re:I hope that the primary focus of the prosecutio (Score:4, Insightful)
The kids involved are the guilty parties; maybe someone should go arrest their parents for failing to raise them properly. Oh, the parents aren't responsible for watching their kids 24 hours a day? Well, it isn't Google's responsibility to take their place.
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I think you missed the memo - Europe is the new Apple and thus is above all recrimination (except for when they try to pass 3 strike laws and justify all of Britain's CCTV cameras). And Americuns is dumbestest and must submit to any and all insults about their intelligence and lack of culture, even if the post itself proves insightful and the poster has demonstrated time and again that (s)he does not fit the mold of the uneducated American.
In other words, America is universally reviled and you are expected
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Politically, Europe is not a single entity. Some European countries (e.g. UK, Italy, Greece) are more corrupt than other countries (e.g. Ireland, Finland, Estonia).
Of course, all countries have bad laws ("three strikes" etc). Some just happen to have more than others, both within and outside EU.
The reason why U.S. gets more attention than others is because it's the only country which persistently applies the label "Land of the Free", and similar ones, in its political propaganda, with the implication that i
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Steady on, old chap, we're not all gay here.
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We don't want them, we didn't ask for them.
Well, don't we sound bitter? You may not have asked for anything, but your elected officials sure did.
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Yes, the original post was a bit light on arguments ;)
Europe isn't really very close to being a single entity at the moment compared to the US. The laws and cultures in each country vary a lot. Even in the British Isles and little islands around about we have separate law in Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man, probably different ones in Jersey etc.. I'm not an expert on it all. So just because Italy and Germany (2 of the countries that are a bit more likely to be right wing historically) do
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:
Re:Morons (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again, no good deed goes unpunished.
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.
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His lawyers are smart people. Since this case is so obviously farcial, it would be really dangerous to be around town as there is no guarantee that anything resembling justice will be carried out. If you ask me, some other agenda is being carried out here. Someone's being blackmailed, somebody needs leverage. Something.
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Just to add a second thought:
Italy has a legal concept which is unknown in Anglo-Saxon countries: namely, that an employee of a company can be held personally criminally liable for the actions or non-actions of the corporation he works for.
This is a variant of a dream that many slashdotters have had - to hold executives responsible to the actions of the companies they represent. How bitter it is when an ideal is perverted thus.
A lesson to Google (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope this serves as a lesson to companies who seem to want the best of all worlds. I'm kind of glad that google is getting hit with this because it brings to light the problem with trying to cater to the demands of local governments. When Google began working with governments in foreign jurisdictions it opened the door to this type of activity.
Google would have a much more stable leg to stand on if they simply said 'We are a US company, we will follow US laws.' when China asked them to tailor GoogleChina to meet the party demands.
Similar to safe harbor protections when it comes to ISPs, if you 'fly the flag' of a specific country on the Internet, you are bound by that country's laws. That doesn't mean that the local governments can't block your service, but it should serve as protection when local governments attempt to apply their laws to a foreign company.
Re:A lesson to Google (Score:4, Insightful)
Every international company has to obey laws for that country, or not do business in that country. When the Wolfenstein games were released in Germany, they had to remove all Nazi signs because that is German law.
Google was told they had to filter search results, or they would be blocked in China. They filter results, but they are the only search engine in China which says right on the search page that the results have been filtered. At least they made a small effort to stand up for free speech while technically complying with China's laws.
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Every international company has to obey laws for that country, or not do business in that country. When the Wolfenstein games were released in Germany, they had to remove all Nazi signs because that is German law.
If I set up a server in not-Germany, I wouldn't have to do a damned thing to alter the content that my website is providing with respect to German law. Germany would be free to block my site, but I am not responsible for the laws of Germany as long as I'm not going into Germany, or attempting to s
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Just because you can 'see' it on the internet doesn't mean that the act occurred within your country's jurisdiction.
Apart from the fact that Google.it is registered in Italy, and the video is accessible from google.it
I hope this serves as a lesson to companies who seem to want the best of all worlds. I'm kind of glad that google is getting hit with this because it brings to light the problem with trying to cater to the demands of local governments. When Google began working with governments in foreign jurisdictions it opened the door to this type of activity.
Xenophobic much? If Google wants to customise their service depending on which country they're serving, it's their own [censored] business. If you don't like it, nobody's forcing you to use anything Google related. It's not like the US is perfect either.
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It seemed pretty relevant to me, especially considering it was part of the base of this guy's argument. Yes it would be simpler to keep everything in one country, but in that case I don't think the US is place that would grant the most freedom from oppression or political influence. I'm quite serious about that, though I'm aware it's kind of flame bait around here.
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Xenophobic much? If Google wants to customise their service depending on which country they're serving, it's their own [censored] business. If you don't like it, nobody's forcing you to use anything Google related. It's not like the US is perfect either.
Xenophobic? Industrialcomplex seemed to be suggesting that google simply not cater to the -local government's- demands when those demands violate human rights. You're basically equating advocacy of human rights with xenophobia, which is absurd. Xenophobia would be saying "Google should prevent users in China from using their services at all."
Cultural imperialism might make a little more sense, but the things I assume he was talking about, helping the chinese government with their censoring activities, ar
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The whole China situation isn't great, but it's better for google to be there and complying with the laws, than for them not to be there at all. Things will change over time. There must be millions of businesses worldwide that interact with China. Google is one of the ones that is more likely to encourage a positive change in their political spectrum.
I get that there are cultures in the world that could do with a bit of enlightenment, but saying "fuck you" and ignoring them is not going to help. And on top
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Everyone cites the Patriot Act as this great evil, yet the Senators who voted for it (and continue to vote to extend it) say it isn't evil because every provision in it requires a judge to sign off on it, creating a system of checks and balances.
I've read stories in the news of bad judges abusing the system, but what I've yet to read is why specifically the law itself is so evil.
Since you're so convinced of its evil nature, perhaps you can illuminate us.
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I didn't say it was evil, but it certainly is a step towards being a "Police state". The AC I was replying to was IMO being rather hypocritical.
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Free speech is a joke when you can't debate history. Now, that's hypocritical.
I have no idea what you're referring to. Sounds like something that maybe Germany would do, but there's a whole lot more to Europe than Germany. It's pretty silly to lump the whole of Europe together when you're referring to matters of culture, law and politics.. the European Union is nowhere near as much of a monoculture as the Unites States are. That's not meant to be an insult, just an observation, and a fairly obvious one to anyone who actually knows anything about Europe.
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Well why would they bother when they have plenty of US targets deployed in their own backyard now?
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If google had told china to go screw itself, they would have had a defense.
But they didn't.
So they lost their effective "common carrier" status and now must comply with the laws of every country on earth.
The only way around this would be to *not serve* to a country unless it signs up to allow google. The signup would have a complete pass on conforming to laws or a specific list of laws the country really really cared about. Google could then decide if the cost of compliance was worth serving the country.
Re:A lesson to Google (Score:4, Insightful)
But I consider it to be a tremendous and horrid act to behave in accordance with laws which violate someone's human rights.
I personally dislike China's ubiquitous censorship, and Google supporting it. But I don't think that internet searches have anything to do with human rights. What right is being infringed upon? Sure, it is still tyranny, but I have grave doubts that there is any right to uncensored internet searches (actually I have grave doubts that there are any innate human rights at all!).
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Hey, AC, do you actually know what fascism is?
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Never said that. I do not condone either Google or China. I was just questioning whether the act violated human rights. If there are innate human rights then everything that violates them is bad, and not everything that doesn't violate them is good. I could draw a Venn Diagram for ya.
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Google said they felt it was better to create in-roads and tell people they their government was hiding information from them, than rather be blocked and not reach the Chinese populace at all.
It is pretty hard to argue with that logic.
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In the case of server hacking - if the server was on US soil then the server is governed by US law. Most likely the hacking was illegal under local law as well, so extradition won't be a problem. If it isn't against the law, the local government will be quickly under pressure to stop it just the same. Hacking into military servers is also a bit of an unusual case, since armies by their very nature are designed to disregard national sovereignty.
If somebody genuinely commits libel I'm fine with charging th
Re:A lesson to Google (Score:5, Insightful)
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I do believe you are correct. In this situation Google is not in a good position.
I admit I'm a bit of a hardliner when it comes to freedom. I will do my best to NOT engage in commerce with an entity that will use that money to further their cause of limiting freedom. It does mean that some of my goods cost more (hardly anywhere close to the 2x that many apologists claim), but it is working out well for me so far.
Convincing our politicians to do something about it so that one US company attempting to 'be
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I think it shows how Google lives the 'don't do evil' slogan. They try to be a good citizen everywhere.
Exactly! And in Soviet Russia "being a good citizen" means turning in dissidents. In North Korea it means never ever saying anything bad about the Government. In eastern Congo it means tolerating rape and violence against women. In Nazi Germany.... Yup, it's all just a days work in "don't be evil".
This kind of moral relativism run amok is not "don't be evil". I'm not willing to start saying Google ha
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Similar to safe harbor protections when it comes to ISPs, if you 'fly the flag' of a specific country on the Internet, you are bound by that country's laws.
You are also bound by the laws of the country in which you do business.
The Italian client expects to see an Italian presence in sales and development when he speaks to Google or he will take his money elsewhere.
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Google is not a US company, it is an international company with physical assets - datacenters, mostly - all around the world.
Strike 2 (Score:5, Funny)
Strike 1 [cnn.com]
That's strike 2, Google. If you put one more foot wrong I'm changing my homepage over to Bing.
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How about the pictures of Rice dressed as an african native? Somebody didn't consider that racially offensive? Or is that accusation reserved for people who make fun of Democrats? :)
Last time I checked those images were still hosted by Google and the NAACP hasn't been pitching a fit.
Lesson for Google (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone posts video of someone performing some illegal activity, delete it ASAP, don't tell anyone and sweep everything under the rug. The video was never there, you never saw anything and I'm sorry, Officer that I can't help you, am I free to go now?
At least that's what the court is trying to teach them.
Re:Lesson for Google (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hmm... “If Hitler openly wants to kill jews, why should other(sic) behave better?” ...maybe because they would want to be better than Berlusconi?
Just saying...
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.
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The Italian government is required by EU treaties to pass laws implementing the directive, but in an Italian court you cannot appeal directly to the directive itself.
I may be misunderstanding this, but if Google was to be found guilty under the Italian laws as they stand, but those laws are not compliant with the EU treaty in question, couldn't Google then proceed to sue Italy in European court?
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Youtube is most certainly an ISP. An ISP is any company that hosts content without having any sort of publishing arm or creating content themselves.
Take your place in line (Score:5, Funny)
I plan to launch a similar action against these Italian politicians. After all, it was their country in which the crime took place. They stood by and permitted it to happen, didn't they?
To make matters worse, they haven't even responded to my letter demanding an apology. That's right. I sent it to Gino's Italian Deli in Montreal. It says "Italian Politicians" right on the envelope, so I know that it was addressed properly. If there was any doubt, it could have been forwarded to the Italian postal service.
There is no excuse. These people are criminals.
What is the deal here? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless these execs posted the videos personally, why are they trying to hold Google responsible? What kind of mob law does Italy follow? What was done to the boy was reprehensible, and by all means, punish the people who did this to him. I seriously doubt these execs even knew this video existed until someone told them they had been charged. Allowing public anger to dictate who can be charged as a criminal when they have done nothing wrong is just stupid not to put too fine a point on it.
Re:What is the deal here? (Score:5, Informative)
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"Does not play well with others." That's the big sign this prosecutor is holding up. The next time he needs a major corporation to assist in finding and identifying a criminal... well, it's going to get interesting.
Google should black list them (Score:3, Interesting)
They should just blacklist blocks of IPs used by Italian law enforcement and legislature for a few weeks from all of Google's services. The Italian government might be able to arrest them if they visit Italy, but Google can deal with them if they go on the Internet.
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Cut off the whole country. They don't want Google in their country.. it can be arranged.
Reputation (Score:2)
Yep, again google's fault (Score:2)
Like the image of Obama's wife as a money on images.google.com, and everyone seeing an image of a money when they type in her name....it was all their fault for creating such a great search engine that someone could post an image of a money to the web and call it what ever name.
Same thing here , the video is clearly google's fault for letting the video happen, I mean they should have had a multi billion software that is in place and is smart enough to watch the video, and know what is happening and be able
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Money shot, surely?
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That was a typo, was supposed to read the monkey.
: P
I am Italian - It's not about bullies. (Score:2, Interesting)
This has nothing to do with the bullies or who uploaded the video but rather our corrupt politicians and their never ending fear of the Internet as a mean for free expression and communications. A few months ago they even made a law proposal for taking restrictive measures (no anonimity), officially to protect children, but the freely downloadable document metadata of the law proposal contained the address of the president of the Italian union of audiovisual publishers. So much for protecting children! That
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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 i
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I find that offensive to bastards.
Can you say "money grab" (Score:2, Insightful)
Plain and simple money grab attempt. Shame on these "officials". How about more concern about the victim?
What do we learn? (Score:2)
If you beat someone up, and brag about it by recording it to a video, you get away.
But don’t dare to tell anyone about it, or you go to jail!
It’s like the censorship in Germany: They are actively protecting and supporting what they say they want to prevent.
With the motto “If we close our eyes to rape, it ceases to exist!”.
Way to go Italy... (Score:2)
Way to go Italy, for blaming your own society's shortcomings on a foreign company. That'll sure solve the problem of bullying handicapped people.
I guess McDonalds is to blame for the maffia?
Just leave Italy (Score:2)
Congratulations! (Score:2)
I want to sincerely congratulate the nation of Italy. It's great to see that you're continuing that time-honoured tradition of evil governments stomping on the face of free speech. Mussolini would be proud.
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Yeah. If only the Latin name wasn't Augusta Taurinorum, that has nothing to do with cliffs and all with the emperor's name and the name of the local people.
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I think it went for TAURinorum, as in Taurus.
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know where you found this info, and I never heard anything about it (and I actually have born and live in Torino). Also there are no "cliffs" around Torino, and Torino has nevere been a citystate in ancient times: in fact it was born as a Roman military camp.
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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
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Sadly this was not to be as his deformities would make him unsuitable to join their ranks. In a fit of self loathing he would then lead the Spartan's enemies down a hidden route so the Spartans would be flanked and killed.
At least that is what I was led to believe by a highly accurate documentary I watched.
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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.
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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 :))
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Similar to Greek Sparta
Ironic? This... is... TORINOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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They killed babies for being genetically inferior?
Well, if they discovered gene theory, in the centuries before Christ, I say more power to 'em!
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They killed babies for being genetically inferior?
Well, if they discovered gene theory, in the centuries before Christ, I say more power to 'em!
Etymology: Latin genus (“‘birth, origin, a race, sort, kind’”) root gen in Latin gignere, Old Latin gegnere (“‘to beget, produce’”)
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.That is completely false. Torino comes from the celtic word Tau, which means mountain (meaning the Alps, definitely not small). It was later adapted by the Latins into Augusta Taurinorum. Your story is completely false, especially since Turin never had a particular civilisation to boast of in ancient times.
Re:Slashdot hasn't suspend parent's account yet?! (Score:4, Funny)
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).
Twice Ironic (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't it sad that mods miss irony in a post even if its title states it?
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Until the next sentence of the same type for a similar case. Now that all the bullyed italian who the video is posted on internet know that they can win €300.000 at the court lottery, why will they do no do so?
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Go see a dictionary.
Oh. Wait. If you're retarded it all makes sense. Sorry, I didn't make it readable for retards.
E
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The space bats are flying daintily tonight, so yes.
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There's pr0n on YouTube?