ENDitorial: The Italian decision on the Google's executives published

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Deutsch: [ENDitorial: Italienisches Urteil hinsichtlich Googles Führungskräfte veröffentlicht | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1874]

Finally, the Court of Milan made public the opinion that backed the
indictment of a couple of Google’s executives charged of Italian Data
Protection Act infringement for not removing a violent video from the
company’s video sharing platform, video.google.com. The opinion of the Court
tells basically what I “guessed” in a previous article, while analyzing the
charges against the managers.

Thus, to put it short, Google’s people have been indicted because they
failed to verify, under the Italian Data Protection Act, whether all of the
people depicted in the video positively consented to its upload. It did not
matter that the service agreement binded the user to publish legally
obtained content only.

As I’ve written and told in serveral places, this is a wrong decision.

Wrong from the legal perspective, for it sets on ISP’s side a hidden duty of
pre-emptive control over users’ activity.

Wrong from the social perspective, for it breaks the tie between a crime and
its “author” and reinforces the idea of “faida” (the collateral vendetta of
the ancient barbarians.)

Court decision (only in Italian, 24.02.2010)
http://speciali.espresso.repubblica.it//pdf/Motivazioni_sentenza_Google.pdf

Google’s executives indictment in Italy. Here are the reason’s why
(13.04.2010)

Google’s executives indictment in Italy. Here are the reason’s why.

Google convictions reveal two flaws in EU law, not just Italian law
(3.03.2010)
http://www.out-law.com/page-10805

EDRi-gram: First decision in the Italian criminal case against Google
executives (24.02.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.4/decision-italy-vs-google-executives

(contribution by Andrea Monti – EDRi-member ALCEI Italy)