Google's global
privacy counsel Peter Fleischer and three other executives are expected to appear in court in Milan on Tuesday to face criminal charges stemming from an offensive video uploaded to the company's site.
Fleischer and the other company officials are accused of criminal defamation and failing to control personal data, according to the International Association of Privacy
Professionals. The executives face a maximum penalty of three years in jail.
The case stems from a 2006 incident in which a high school student posted a three-minute clip of himself and three
others bullying a 17-year-old with Down syndrome. The clip, which went live in September, was taken down Nov. 7, within 24 hours of Google receiving complaints about it.
A Google spokesperson
said in a statement that the company intends to "vigorously defend" its employees.
"We feel that bringing this case to court is totally wrong. It's akin to prosecuting mail service employees for
hate speech letters sent in the post. What's more, seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open internet," the company stated.
Italian
authorities briefly took Fleischer into custody on Jan. 23, shortly after he delivered a lecture at the University of Milan, according to the International Association of Privacy Professionals, which
broke the news Monday afternoon in its newsletter. Fleischer is based in Paris. The law enforcement authorities reportedly had a summons for Fleischer and took him to a prosecutor for a deposition
that day.
In the U.S., companies like Google are generally protected from criminal liability for material uploaded by users. But European laws appear to offer weaker protections. In 1997, a
German court convicted Compuserve Deutschland head Felix Somm of distributing pornography because customers were able to download child pornography from the service. An appellate court later
overturned that finding. The International Association of Privacy Professionals said that Italy's penal code provides that Internet content providers--including companies like Google--are
responsible for material users post online.
Fleischer's arrest appears to mark the first time that a privacy executive has faced criminal charges for alleged privacy violations, said Trevor
Hughes, executive director of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. "It's a cautionary tale for anyone in the Internet business," Hughes said, adding that the Google executives who
were arrested did not know about the video until it was removed. "The job risk profile just changed considerably," Hughes said.