Italian Prosecutors To Sue Google Execs Over YouTube Video

Italy Is to File Charges Against Google Executives from the Wall Street Journal reports that Italian prosecutors have completed their two-year investigation and are ready to file charges against four Google executives.

The suit is over YouTube hosting a video of a disabled teen being taunted by others. The prosecutors are suing for defamation and violation of privacy, including criminal charges. The case is reportedly going to go into trial in September for not being able to control the videos that were being uploaded to the site.

Stefano Hesse, head of corporate communications for Google in Southern Europe, told the Wall Street Journal:

Google has cooperated with Italian prosecutors from the beginning of the investigation and will continue to do so. [Google had removed the video in question within hours of having been notified of its existence in September 2006.]

Under EU legislation, adopted into law by Italy, Google isn’t required to monitor third-party content on its sites, but takes down offending content when it is notified.

The four Google executives include:
(1) The chairman of the board of Google’s Italian unit at the time
(2) A Google Italy board member at the time
(3) A Google privacy executive in Europe
(4) The old head of Google Video for Europe

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Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.