0131 560 1790 0131 560 1790

Are You Responsible For Your Website? – Google In Italy

25 Feb 2010 by Graham Lyons - SEO , No Comments


YouTube LogoTo what extent is a business responsible for the content on their website?

At first glance this looks like quite a simple question, surely if the business owns the website then it must be in control of its content? This line becomes blurred when you start to include potentially interactive elements such as forums or even blog comments. When the website doesn’t have direct control over the content posted then to what extent is it responsible? If a forum user posts a potentially libellous comment should the website owner expect to find themselves in legal difficulty?

Yesterday an Italian court convicted three ex Google executives, David Drummond, Peter Fleischer, and George De Los Reyes with privacy violations after a video of an autistic teenager being bullied was posted on YouTube. They were cleared of defamation charges.

David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer spoke to the BBC about the decision:

“I intend to vigorously appeal this dangerous ruling. It sets a chilling precedent”

“If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our position at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability”

The BBC reports that Google’s lawyers said that the video was taken down from the site as soon as it had been brought to their attention.

David Drummond

David Drummond - Google's Chief Legal Officer

Richard Thomas, the former UK Information Commissioner also talked to BBC News:

“It is like prosecuting the post office for hate mail that is sent in the post”

The potential ramifications of this decision are huge. Should Google in future screen every video before it is posted online? The scale of an operation like YouTube makes that all but impossible.

This could potentially cause ripples for the way Google operates in Italy, if Google were to find themselves in an impossible position where they were required to make, in effect, impossible checks on the services they provide then the questions about the future of the firms services might start to appear.

We reported recently that Google had introduced a Safety Mode for YouTube so that potentially offensive videos could be screened. However, this requires the video to be ‘flagged’ by other users before it is considered potentially offensive – there is no pre-screening.

What do you think about this news? Let us know.

..More information can be found on BBC News,The Register and Ars Technica.



You may also be interested in:

  1. Could Google Leave China? In a surprising turn of events, Google Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond airs the idea that Google...
  2. Google Pulls Plug On China Censored-Search It seems that Google has made its decision of the future of its China Search service, but what does mean...
  3. Google And The Corridors Of Power Google releases information about government information and removal requests, the book is opened on normally behind-doors processes....
  4. What Is Duplicate Content, And What Does It Mean For My Website? Websites are all about content, no matter the purpose or topic, it’s the content that attracts new users and retains...
  5. Free Experiment Crashes Google Website New experiment causes Google to crash to down to earth with a bang. See the post for full details. Read...

No Comments

« Previous Post 
 Next Post »

Leave a Comment

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.