An Italian court has given three Google execs six month suspended sentences for allowing a video of a teenager with Down's Syndrome being bullied to appear on the search firm's Google Video website.
It's a landmark ruling that could totally change the liabilities of internet companies which allow third parties to publish content via their websites, in Italy anyway. If it did, the logistical demands it might put on such companies could make YouTube-style operations impossible to run.
The three Google men were accused of breaking Italian defamation and privacy laws for allowing the video to be streamed on their website, even though they weren't involved in making the video, or even aware it was on their system. An Italian judge knocked back the defamation claims, but upheld the privacy law charges.
Needless to say, Google did not welcome the ruling. An angry Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, told the BBC: "I intend to vigorously appeal this dangerous ruling. It sets a chilling precedent. If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our position at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability".
There are parallels between this case and civil cases being fought elsewhere in the world around copyright issues against Google's principle video sharing service, YouTube. MTV owners Viacom in the US, and various indie music firms in Germany, are suing Google claiming that, although YouTube removes copyright infringing content its users upload as soon as it is made aware of said infringing content's existence, it should still be liable for any infringement that occurs between upload and takedown.
Such liabilities - if a court ruled they existed - would mean YouTube would have to be much more careful in policing content as it is uploaded and before it puts said content live. But Google insists that, because it has a takedown system in place to remove infringing content once it is alerted of its presence on the YouTube website, it is not liable for that temporary infringement. Case law in the US seems to suggest Google is right in that jurisdiction, though an interpretation of German copyright law on this matter is pending.
Nevertheless, Google has been developing increasingly sophisticated technology to spot content that copyright owners have specifically asked not to be streamed on YouTube, which in theory can block any third parties from uploading that content. However, it is unlikely any technology could ever be clever enough to block unsavoury content like that which was uploaded in the Italian case.
If Google, or, even worse, individual Google execs, can be held liable for such content going live on their sites, then every upload might need to go before a human being before going live, which just isn't realistic for a global free-to-use service where millions of videos are uploaded every month.
The good news for Google is that most legal experts reckon this Italian judge's interpretation of privacy laws in this regard is unusual, and would not be repeated by judges in other jurisdictions. According to the BBC, the UK's former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the case gave privacy laws a "bad name".
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