An Italian court has convicted three Google executives in a trial over a video showing a teenager with Down’s Syndrome being bullied. This case was the first of its kind in internet history and since then has raised worrying concerns over the safety of internet use.
The Google employees were accused of breaking Italian law by allowing the video to be posted online in the first place. Prosecutors argued that Google broke Italian privacy law by not seeking the consent of all the parties involved before allowing it to go online.
The three employees received suspended six-month sentences, while a fourth defendant was acquitted.
Google’s lawyers said that the video was removed as soon as it was brought to its attention and that the firm also provided information on who posted it.
As a result four students were expelled from their school in Turin, northern Italy.
The three were found guilty of violating privacy and given six month suspended sentences, while they were cleared of defamation. A fourth executive Arvind Desikan, an executive with Google video Europe was cleared.
This newly found court case may bring up other examples of internet misuse as it does indeed seem to on the increase with new local council initiatives implementing schemes to reduce cyber bullying and cyber misuse.
It also begs the question for future court cases; are the search engine executives going to continue taking the wrap for uploads that they have no involvement in? Should there be more stringent methods in place to prevent this from happening again?
