POPULAR TOOLS

Italian lawyers demand jail sentences in Google video case

Thu Nov 26 2009, 15:17 PM UTC

Italian prosecutors who say four Google execs are guilty of defamation and privacy violation are hoping the defendants are given sentences of up to a year. The SVP, former CFO and global privacy counsel may get one-year sentences, while the senior product manager may get six months.

The case concerns a video hosted by Google that shows a disabled teenager being bullied at a school in Turin. The video was uploaded by one of the boy's tormentors in 2006 and remained up for two months. Google claims it was unaware of the video until the day it was called upon to remove the content. Prosecutors say the execs would have known about it in advance of receiving the complaint.

According to the International Association of Privacy Professionals, the case could be the “first criminal sanction ever pursued against a privacy professional for his company’s actions”.