
Oscar Magi, the Italian judge presiding over the Google YouTube privacy/defamation liability case. Picture copyright Luca Bruno/Associated Press. Taken from The Guardian - click to view article.
– UPDATE Thursday 25th November, 23:25UTC:
Lilian Edwards has put together a really comprehensive analysis of the verdict on her blog. See also her prior post about it back in December.
Original post follows.
Wow.
Gosh, this is bad news.
Three of four Google employees on trial for defamation and violations of Italy’s privacy code, in reference to a video uploaded by a third-party to YouTube and subsequently taken down by Google after a takedown request, have been found guilty today by a court in Milan. They were absolved of the defamation charges but found guilty of privacy violations, and given six-month suspended sentences.
I haven’t been following this case in any detail, but what I can glean from the result seems more than a little out of step with the thrust of the E-Commerce Directive, given that they did not film, upload, or review the video, and acted to remove the content within a few hours of a police report (so presumably “expeditiously”).
But we are deeply troubled by this conviction for another equally important reason. 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. European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence.
That’s taken from Google’s reaction on their blog.
This case has been ongoing for some time. There is analysis at Ars Technica and a somewhat contrary opinion at ZDnet blogs.
There is also good a BBC News report containing a video statement from a Google representative, who appears visibly shocked and emotional at the result. There is also coverage at The Guardian. And more for those who understand Italian at La Stampa and Corriere della Sera.
According to TechDirt, YouTube now receives 20 hours of video uploads every minute. It’s therefore worth noting that the Italian government have recently proposed making the approval of the Communications Ministry a prerequisite to uploading video onto the Web as part of their amendments to media law (presumably AVMS implementation?). A central part of Google’s argument in the case was the impracticality of such pre-approval/screening.
I hope the Commission go to town on Italy for failure to implement the E-Commerce directive’s safeguards.