Google fights to keep four executives out of prison over video clip

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6855178.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=4947818

by jacquesm • 17 years ago

32 36 17 years ago

technology.timesonline.co.uk

dtf• 17 years ago

Crazy. What on earth are Vivi Down hoping to achieve?

EDIT: ok, it appears they want Google Italia to switch to premoderation.

jacquesm5• 17 years ago

As if that's even remotely feasible.

dschobel4• 17 years ago

Of course it is. It will far bit of money and man power but it's not infeasible by any stretch of the imagination.

epe• 17 years ago

$$$

jrockway• 17 years ago

This is the end of user-created content in Italy.

Fortunately other countries are not this irrational. Today.

jacquesm5• 17 years ago

It's totally nuts.

24 hours is probably a little on the sluggish side for a response, but still well within the accepted normal response time for a takedown notice (or a cease and desist).

I really fail to see how the executives can be directly held personally responsible for this, and how it could possibly amount to 3 years in jail and a fine if they're found guilty.

noverloop• 17 years ago

if they are guilty, they'll just go to a higher court and so on until they are allowed to go to the European courts where they certainly would win the case. It might take a few years to get there tough

dschobel4• 17 years ago

The problem more often than not is old laws which were legislated when something like youtube was inconceivable.

weavejester2• 17 years ago

I'd wait until the end of the court case. Even if it gets through all the Italian court system, there's still the EU courts. It seems extremely unlikely Google will lose in the long run.

fsniper3• 17 years ago

Turkey is irrational. Maybe not that much but very irrational. Blocking site access to Turkey for any site governmental organization TIB - Telecommunication Communication Presidency (Yeah I don't know what it means either) reviews and decides outlaw without even court decision. Also there is a blocked site list only shared with "certified by TIB" blocking software developers.

Youtube was blocked beacuse of some obscure videos nobody knows over a year. Google sites are blocked. With Adnan Oktar's Lawyers' unbelievable effort Richard Dawkins' site is blocked. Blogger is blocked. Wordpress... And counting. Some of them managed to "obey law" and unblocked some of them could not. But the insanity continues.

Well years ago we had a news groups moderator jailed for two years because of a post that he had not managed to "know" is outlaw.

radu_floricica3• 17 years ago

Wonder why there's not more publicity about this. I only heard about the youtube thing, but I suspected it was a fluke. You're describing the worst case scenario for what Australia (and others) are trying to implement... there should be a lot more discussion about this.

enobrev• 17 years ago

It's hard to consider a free and public internet service provider as a "content provider." In the case of television and print, this makes sense as the people providing the content are under the employ of the organizations distributing said content. This is definitely not the case for content-driven sites based upon public submission.

WilliamLP• 17 years ago

The real culprits are the makers of the video camera, for not requiring any recorded video to be sent to a moderator first before storing a single bit.

catweasel• 17 years ago

I agree with the prevailing sentiment here regarding censorship of user submitted content on sites like youtube. I can also see it would make more economic sense for google to simply deny the service to Italy if the case succeeded. But wait a minute! Doesn't google already censor content for China?

drusenko2• 17 years ago

It's not about retroactively censoring, it's about proactively making sure the content isn't there in the first place, aka monitoring, which would be impossible at scale.

Also, monitoring would open Google up to even more liability: "We're not quite sure if this video is illegal, let's bring it to court. Hey, the courts have found this video to be illegal! And you reviewed it and approved it. You're responsible!"

poutine• 17 years ago

Google does proactively censor:

Search for June 4th: google.com 2,780,000 hits, google.cn: 164 hits

Try posting a blog entry and reference "June 4th" in it and see if it ever shows up in google.cn

Don't be evil, unless there's yuan at stake...

robk• 17 years ago

Hilarious and ridiculous. Google could legitimately afford to pull out of all business in Italy, close all offices and reject traffic from IP addresses originating in Italy. It'd be interesting to see that as a precedent.

veemjeem• 17 years ago

Alternatively, people living in Italy can post up scandalous videos to all the video sites and shutdown all the video internet companies in Italy.

Avenger422• 17 years ago

And banks in the U.S. can shut down any email addresses by sending financial information to them, don't forget.

michaelkeenan• 17 years ago

I am not a lawyer and I really have no idea how these things work...but wouldn't Google's stockholders sue the executives if they made a decision like that? It would surely harm their profit and the stock price, so wouldn't it be a breach of fiduciary duty?

radu_floricica3• 17 years ago

Tongue in cheek as it was, this suggestion would most likely improve google profits long term.

Avenger422• 17 years ago

The court is talking about putting senior Google execs in jail. Considering they'd be limiting their legal liability by cutting off service to the country, I think they'd have a pretty good rebuttal to any lawsuits.

tlrobinson• 17 years ago

YouTube isn't profitable yet, is it? Google should just block Italy from accessing YouTube for awhile.

(That said, I have no idea if YouTube is at all popular in Italy. This could backfire if another video site fills it's place)

hristov• 17 years ago

The way things are in Berlusconi's Italy, I would not be surprised if this case is being kept alive by his friends to benefit his media companies which are undoubtedly pissed off at youtube.

Imagine if Rupert Murdoch became president of the US. That is, in a nutshell, the situation with Berluscony and Italy.

pstuart• 17 years ago

Murdoch did by proxy for 8 years. It wasn't pretty.

Google fights to keep four executives out of prison over video clip

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