Most of us may think that Google, Facebook, and eBay are companies that might be untouchable. And while most of us may be in agreement that all three of these companies serve a good purpose in our cyber society, Italy begs to differ. The New York Times tells the story something like this: On January 2008, chief privacy counsel at Google, Peter Fleischer was walking to the University of Milan to give a speech, and shortly after hearing his name called from behind him, he was surrounded by 5 Italian police officers.
Fliescher had been surrounded by these officers that day because of a video web incident that had been posted in 2006. The video was taken of an autistic boy from Turin, who was being taunted by classmates, and to continue their teasing, the classmates posted the video on the web. After the brief interrogation, the police allowed Peter Fleischer to make his speech, but now Fleischer, as well as three other Google executives, were facing charges of defamation (malicious gossip) and privacy violations; all charges that could serve serious repercussions for Google. Google argues that if these charges are implemented on themselves, that other Internet companies that are up and running in Europe and Italy could also feel the shock wave from the charges as well.
Prosecutors have already given their case last month, and are looking to give Fleischer and the two other executives a sentence of one year in prison. Google executives are scheduled to give their defense some time this week. Google is pleading not guilty, saying that they had nothing to do with these videos.
The beauty of Google is that they leave it up to their users to mark videos as offensive or to control the flow of what should and should not be allowed to be posted on the web. Websites like YouTube and Google Video are not responsible for filtering the content in advance. When users mark an item as objectionable, then Google steps in to see if it violates the terms of use, and then it will decide whether or not to remove that item from the site.
But this time the stakes are high for Google because Italian law holds individuals responsible for corporate action. Prosecutors are saying that Google was negligent in allowing the clips to remain on the Internet for two months in 2006. Google removed them after an Italian company Vivi Down (representing people with down syndrome) complained about the video. If Google is proven guilty in this case, Peter Fleischer fears that web 2.0 will become much more liable for what is posted on these open forum websites.
20 hours of video are uploaded every minute onto YouTube, and in my opinion 20 hours of video a minute would be quite a task to monitor every single upload. YouTube's accessibility, easy access to upload, and easy viewing process, is what makes it so appetizing for everyone to take part in. Fleischer stated it the best himself when he said that:
"We see this as an attempt to reopen the law in Italy and Europe that protects these platforms for freedom of expression..." "It's an attach on a decade of progress."
I agree with Fleischer that we have made nothing but progress in the Internet world. To let someone come in and try and harness our freedom of speech and expression on the Internet would do nothing but set us back in what our constitution originally read from the beginning.
The run-in incidents with Italy are not only effecting Google. Italian tax authorities have also asked eBay to see a review of individuals who made large volumes of sales within the last year. Facebook has also faced some head on collisions in Italy, who wanted Facebook to block the content that they marked as threatening and objectionable.
According to the New York Time Article, concerning the Google case:
The verdict, expected within weeks, might not be the final word in the case, because the decision could be appealed in the European Court of Justice. In the meantime, Mr. Fleischer said he had been advised not to set foot in Italy at least until a verdict is issued.
