The Googlization of Everything

Reuters:

Italy may charge Google executives
Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:32pm BST

(Reuters) - Italian prosecutors are preparing to file charges in a 2006 case against four Google executives over a video on the Internet provider's Italian-language site, the Wall Street Journal said.

The video shows a disabled teenager taunted by peers.

Prosecutors are expected in September to request that the executives stand trial on charges of defamation and violation of privacy for allegedly failing to control the content of the site adequately, the paper cited people close to the probe as saying.

The executives targeted in the inquiry are the top legal representative and chairman of Google's Italian unit at the time, another Google Italy board member at the time, an executive responsible for Google's privacy policies in Europe, and the then-head of Google Video for Europe, the paper said.

The men were put under investigation not for their direct role in the posting of the material in question but because they had positions of authority over the operations involved, the people familiar with the probe told the paper. ...