14 DAY TRIAL // Lawsuits aren't anything new for Google, but one in Italy could mean jail time for several Google employees if they're found guilty. The four men are charged with several privacy violations and libel over a user-uploaded video, hosted on Google Video in 2006. The prosecutors are now asking for one year in jail for three of the executives, David Drummond, senior VP of corporate development and chief legal officer at Google, George Reyes ex-CFO at the company and Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel, and six months for libel for Arvind Desikan, senior product marketing manager at Google.
As expected, Google is defending its employees and believes the case to be without merit. “We did exactly what is required under European and Italian law,” William Echikson, a Google spokesman, told Bloomberg. “We took the video down when notified by the authorities. Seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open Internet and could spell the end of Web 2.0 in Italy. We will defend and support our employees.”
In 2006, several students from a Turin school uploaded a clip to Google Video of them bullying a classmate with Down's syndrome. The video was up on the site for almost two months before being taken down by Google. The company says it took action as soon as it was notified and removed it less than 24 hours after receiving the complaint. This wasn't enough for the Italian prosecutors who believe the site should have had better filters and more human supervisors.
Google claims that it acted in accordance with Italian and international law and the general view is that a service isn't responsible for the content its users upload to it. If the lawsuit finds the Google employees guilty it could have direct consequences for most online services, which all have some sort of user-generated content, in the country but also elsewhere.