Italian court convicts 3 Google executives in bullying video case

Judge Oscar Magi sentenced Google's global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer, senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond, retired chief financial officer George Reyes to a six-month suspended jail term for privacy violations and absolved them of defamation charges. The fourth defendant, Senior product marketing manager Arvind Desikan, charged only with defamation, was acquitted.

The California-based company called the trial "a threat to freedom on the Internet" because it could force providers to monitor thousands of footages uploaded every day to sites like YouTube.

"We will appeal this astonishing decision," Google spokesman Bill Echikson said. "We are deeply troubled by this decision. It attacks the principles of freedom on which the Internet was built."

The case stems from an incident in September 2006 when students at a Turin high school filmed four humiliating a male schoolmate with Down's syndrome. The clip was recorded by mobile phone and then uploaded to Google Video.

The complaint was filed by an Italian advocacy group for people with Down's syndrome, Vivi Down, and the boy's father.

Google claimed that it had removed the video right after being notified and assisted Italian authorities to identify the bullies and bring them to justice.

It argued that hosting platforms do not create their own content, but host others', therefore Google Video, YouTube and Facebook cannot be held responsible for content that users post. However, prosecutors accused the company of negligence saying the video remained online for two months, despite some users had already requested it to be removed.