The entire case is really grottesque. It’s thank to that video that the idiots (sorry, I can't just find another term) got busted and proper actions have been taken to make some justice for the boy with Down syndrome.
This is only yet another way to prove that our (I am italian) justice system is such a total failure on so many side that it hurts.
Unless this case ends up dismissed or easily won, Google should redirect all Italian IPS to a page explaining what has happened and that they are unable to do business in Italy until the laws are changed.
They should add a "contact your government" feature that lets Italian internet users let their parliament know what's going on.
This isn't punishing Italian internet users it's a necessary safety precaution. It's not worth doing business somewhere that puts your employees in danger of jail time for doing their jobs.
I know where it is - I've been there a few times, both for work and to watch the finale of the Giro di Lombardia:-) It'd be fun to have a HN-Italy meetup sometime, but I'm not sure there are enough people within a reasonable distance.
As an Italian who has left Italy in disgust several years ago, I have a hard time considering my country of origin to be a first world nation. Companies should be weary of doing business in Italy until the draconian laws there are revoked.
Italy's in a bad way right now. Consider that they still have Berlusconi as their leader, who first made his appearance in the early 90'ies. Imagine if we still had Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and Bush Sr. contending the presidency in the US.
I think long term that Italy will continue to punch above its weight, as it has in the past: Roman empire, Renaissance, and some pretty decent stuff in decades past, for that matter - not bad for a relatively small country without much in the way of natural resources. But I don't know when that will be. We're headed back there next month, but we may not be staying too long. It's sad, because it's such a wonderful place in many ways, with plenty of very bright, creative, hard working people.
I'm actually less shocked that they're bringing criminal charges than that it's illegal to post a video making fun of the mentally handicapped. It's clearly in bad taste, but I can't imagine living somewhere where even the poster of the video had committed a crime.
I'm pretty sure that it would be considered a hate crime in the UK. This is an arrestable offense which can carry a range of punishments depending on the severity (e.g. physical assault vs verbal assault).
Well, they certainly wouldn't be extradited, since extradition in most of the world requires the crime they are found guilty of to also be a crime in the country of residence. I don't even think the asses who posted the video committed a crime here, let alone the guy who runs the website.
They took him before a public prosecutor for a deposition. It doesn't say he was charged, but it sounds like he was detained. May "arrested" was too strong, but it certainly wasn't something that could be laughed off.
Edit* this must be why google patented the floating offshore datacenters...so they can operate outside of territorial waters and evade extradition.
If Exec's are directly personally responsible for content created by user's of a site in Italy it kinda makes you think twice about operating a site there. Pretty scary actually. I don't condone the video, nor do I think web services should not take some responsibility to monitor content, but it's not feasible or sane to assume they can catch all or most of what might be illegal in one country or the other.
Until the patent troll shows up. While it's slightly cheaper to just disclose the idea, filing a patent helps the patent office avoid granting a patent on the same idea.
Interesting to note that the individuals named are all non-Italian Google execs and employees. Perhaps the Italian government has no real intention of punishing individuals, but just wants to make a stink about this to try to scare UGC sites into being responsible for their content. The impossibility of extradition gives them cover. If they named Italian Google executives or employees, which I'm guessing they easily could have, they'd actually have to put people in jail and face the absurdity of these changes in a very concrete way.
After this trial ends, they should just not offer service to Italian internet users or businesses ... Ideally they should set up some sore of embargo with all the major players [content providers, network owners, software producers, etc]. I think that a lot of companies would be willing to join in to help make an example of Italy so other countries don't try the same sort of bullshit in the future.
Unfortunately, there are still other companies that would be happy to take Google's slice of the market in their absence. I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't mind taking over search services, and there are plenty of user-generated content sites that would be willing to risk an unlikely extradition in exchange for Italy's YouTube users.
This is only yet another way to prove that our (I am italian) justice system is such a total failure on so many side that it hurts.