Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer and three other executives have been charged by Italian authorities with of defamation and failure to exercise control over personal data.
If convicted, the Google execs are looking at a sentence of a maximum 36 months.
The Italian authorities claim that Google is (partially) responsible for the upload of a short clip onto Google Video:
“The video that sparked the investigation was captured in a Turin classroom. Four high school boys were recorded taunting a young man with Down syndrome, ultimately hitting the 17-year-old with a tissue box. One of the boys uploaded the footage to Google Video's Italian site on September 8, 2006,” writes Tracey Bentley.
Google reported that over 200,000 video are uploaded on its above-mentioned site on a daily basis. Also, the search giant reminded Italian prosecutors that, under EU legislation (which fully applies in Italy), the company was only required to remove content considered offensive when receiving complaints about it.
The video in question was removed by Google on November 7, 2006, after having received 2 separate complaints. Still, Milan public prosecutor Francesco Cajani claims that Google is still to be blamed for allowing the clip on the site in the first place.
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