Three Google executives have been vindicated by an appeals court in Milan, Italy, which overturned a 2010 verdict that found the three men guilty of privacy violations after Google failed to remove in a timely fashion a video posted to Google Video by a user of children bullying another child with autism, The New York Times reported Friday.
The three executives — Peter Fleischer, Google privacy counsel; David Drummond, chief legal officer; George Reyes, former chief financial officer — had been previously been convicted in absentia and received six-month suspended sentences, but those are now null and void.
The case was viewed as a precedent-setting one in assigning responsibility for Web content and privacy violations, to either big companies that host material or users who upload it. The overturned conviction was applauded by Google, which argued it acted legally and responsibly in removing the video several hours after it was posted, following complaints.
However, as The Times noted: “While the appeals court released its decision in the Google case on Friday, its reasoning was not immediately clear,” and would be revealed in several months.
(H/T: ars technica)
