A recent Google conviction concerning privacy laws and the website’s liability over the user-generated content it hosts could have a huge impact on Web 2.0 and the digital age. Not only is this case current and relevant, it is being considered to having a huge impact on the operations of the Internet. Three Google executives have been criminally charged and held responsible for a video posted on the their website in 2006, claiming that it violated the privacy of the subject featured in it. The video at the center of this case is a three-minute cell phone video featuring teenagers bullying a boy with Down’s Syndrome that was posted in to Google Video, before they bought YouTube. Once an advocacy group found this unarguably questionable, it was taken down by Google after being viewed about 500 times and the bullies were identified. The controversy remains over the fact that Google had allowed it to make it to the website in the first place. When looking at this case, it’s important to remember that this took place in Turin, Italy, not the United States, but nonetheless affects the Internet all over the world.
This is the one of the first instances in which individuals have faced personal criminal charges for violations of data protection laws occurring by the company they work for. Currently, Google doesn’t screen anything before publishing it, and United States law as well as European Union copyright law protects them from liability if they respond to offensive or questionable content, but the law in Italy is not protecting these men. So, this conviction is implying that the Google isn’t a tool for users, it’s more comparable to media such as newspapers or television that provide content that should be regulated. This is a real challenge to the business model Google has built itself on, where the responsibility lies with the users to control the content, not the company itself too.
Google defends itself by claiming “We feel that bringing this case to court is totally wrong. It’s akin to prosecuting mail service employees for hate speech letters sent in the post. What’s more, seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open Internet”. None of the employees charged actually had anything to do with the offending video, they were just company executives. They are also arguing that the ruling contradicted a European Union law that gives service providers a safe harbor from liability for the content they post. Many U.S. technology associations are defending Google for fear of what this conviction may do to the future of the Internet. “If the conviction is allowed to stand, it will chill the provision of Web 2.0 services that provide user-generated content platforms” claims Leslie Harris, president of Democracy for Technology. Seems like there is a push to suppress Internet freedom. The lawyer defending Google called the verdict astonishing and “It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the internet is built,” “If that ’safe harbor’ principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.”
This case is a perfect example of the new ethical and legal questions that come with new technologies. Privacy is obviously a gray area when it comes to the legalities of sites like this, so new laws or clearer laws should be made so that other executives can avoid this fate.
Sources:
“Google conviction could have wide impact on Web”. The Salt Lake Tribune. 26 Feb. 2010. http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_14471210
Donadio, Rachel. “Larger Threat Is Seen In Google Case.” The New York Times. 24.Feb. 2010.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/technology/companies/25google.html
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