Google and the law

Mark Ward | 15:18 UK time, Thursday, 25 February 2010

An Italian court has convicted three Google executives in a trial over a video showing an autistic teenager being bullied. The Google employees were accused of "privacy violations" in allowing the video to be posted online.

But Reporters without Borders says the real perpetrators had already been punished:

"We obviously condemn the dissemination of such a video but the guilty parties are those who did the bullying and those who filmed it and posted it online, and they have already been convicted."

Matt Sucherman at the Google blog says the company will appeal what it describes as an "astonishing decision".

"In essence this ruling means that employees of hosting platforms like Google Video are criminally responsible for content that users upload. We will appeal this astonishing decision because the Google employees on trial had nothing to do with the video in question."

The firm also says it "attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built":

"Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming."

Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine agrees with the search giant, saying the ruling could "kill the internet":

"By holding Google liable for the actions of a user, the Italian court is in essence requiring Google and every other web site to review and vet everything anyone puts online. The practical implication of that, of course, is that no one will let anyone put anything online because the risk is too great. I wouldn't let you post anything here. My ISP wouldn't let me post anything on its servers. Google wouldn't let me post anything on its services. And that kills the internet."

Lee Gomes at Forbes does a rough calculation as to how many people would need to monitor YouTube if the firm were required to do so:

"Users are said to upload 20 hours of video every minute; reviewing all of them in real time would require 1,200 pairs of eyeballs."

Charles Arthur at the Guardian says the decision "throws a bucketful of sand into the machinery of YouTube" and its bid to turn a profit:

"Monitoring all that content, even for a single country, could prove enormously expensive. That in turn would put profitability for the site - which is thought to have lost between $100m and $500m in 2009 - further away than ever. YouTube has never made an operating profit in its five-year history, and Google has been trying to sell adverts on videos to make the site profitable."

The New York Times - which sees the decision as a challenge to other services such as Facebook and Twitter - says the decision must be seen in the context of the Italian media landscape, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi "owns most private media and indirectly controls public media":

"Several measures are pending in Parliament here that seek to impose various controls on the Internet. Critics of Mr. Berlusconi say the measures go beyond routine copyright questions and are a way to stave off competition from the Web to public television stations and his own private channels - and to keep a tighter grip on public debate."

But Tom Foremski at Silicon Valley Watcher makes the case that Google is a media company at heart and therefore should come under similar regulations to newspapers and other media organisations:

"Google can't continue to turn a blind eye to its social responsibilities. It has to face them or it will be forced to face them. If media companies such as newspapers have to shoulder social responsibilities then Google, and other Internet companies, need to do the same. 'Do no evil' is passive. 'Do some good' is what Google needs to do."

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