Milan -
An amateur film of the abuse of a disabled person in the video portal from Google Italy and the consequences: now convicted three officers of the Internet company to suspended sentences.
A Milan court said on Wednesday from a sentence of six months in prison, on probation, because the Google employee in 2006 had not prevented the publication of the video.
The cell phone video shows how a fellow student with Down syndrome, abuse and brutal beating. The film was released by the perpetrators in September 2006 on Google Video under the heading "The funniest films" and only after protests two months later removed from Google been.
It is "the world's first time" that the heads a search engine company for content on their portal to account have been drawn, Italian media commented the verdict. So the verdict could have serious consequences as a precedent.
"I'm beside myself. This decision creates a dangerous precedent, "protested the former chairman of Google Italy, David Drummond, one of the condemned. There is "clear statutory provisions in Italy and in the EU", which set clear that Internet companies would not control the content in advance. Once they had learned of the video, it was immediately deleted.
Marco Pancini, a spokesman for Google Italy, spoke of "an attack on the fundamental freedom principles on which the Internet was founded.
The Milan public prosecutor declared himself satisfied with the outcome of the process. It was "for the first time in Italy, a major problem with regard to the protection of human dignity in modern times has been raised." The judge had based her decision that Google had failed to give consent for publication on the part of all parties to obtain the video. Google has announced that it will go to appeal.
