Google Executives Convicted in Italy

An Italian court has convicted three Google executives for privacy violations on Wednesday. The three, which included Google's senior vice president David Drummond, former chief financial officer George Reyes and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer, were convicted for allowing a video of an autistic boy being abused to be posted on Google's YouTube video service. The three convicted individuals received a suspended six-month sentence.

While Google has said that this trial is a threat to Internet freedom because it would make it necessary to "screen" each and every video posted on YouTube - a task which is virtually impossible - the prosecutors counter that the trial was not about imposing censorship - but about balancing freedom of expression with the rights of an individual.

All the three officials continue to assert that they had no role in the production or uploading of the video and that it was the complete responsibility of the uploaders. The prosecutors, however, said that Google could have removed it as it was in no time, a very popular video and was in the "most watched" list as well - a thing that cannot be easily missed. The charges against Google were sought by Vivi Down, an advocacy group for people with Down syndrome.

Google, on its part, claims that it had taken the video offline as soon as the contents were revealed and it started receiving complaints. The perpetrators of the crime too very then caught and convicted - using the same video footage.