A sentence against Google from Italy

Google Internet is not a place where everything is allowed and although nothing can be prohibited on the Web, "there are laws that codify behaviors and create obligations" which, if are not obeyed, lead to criminal liability. These were the words used by Judge Oscar Magi to justify the sentence that the court in Milan has imposed, on February 24th, on three Google managers.

This sentence has been in all the international newspapers because it was the first time that Google was condemned for the contents posted on the web. The accused video was put on Google in September 2006 and it was removed only two months later, making 5500 contacts in 60 days. The movie was filmed in a school, in Turin, and it was showing a boy with autism while being beaten by some of his classmates in total disregard of the others.
The Milan court sentenced the Google Italy executives because they didn't control that video for two months. The choice of Judge Magi was harshly criticized by Google U.S. executives, two months ago. The ambassador in Rome, David Thorne, had expressed great discomfort for that sentence. He even wrote a note, "we are adversely affected by the conviction of some executives of Google Inc. for posting a video on Google with offensive content".
According to a Google spokesman, this sentence was a real attack on the fundamental principles of freedom on which Internet has been built.
Today, Judge Magi writes in 111 pages the reasons for his choice, saying that Internet must also have rules and laws that codify behavior and create obligations.
The net without rules, therefore, does not exist and the words used to justify the sentence say it clearly, stating that there is no place outside the law, not even the web.
The ruling, the first of its kind in the world, condemns the Google's executives for infringement of privacy. But above all, the sentence opens a debate on the use of images online. Someone suggests a prior examination of the material by the provider as the only possible solution, but this choice involves a big job and could easily become a kind of censorship.
The lawyers of Google are now studying the sentence, but have already warned that they will appeal against the decision because "this sentence attacks the principles on which Internet has been built."
And if these principles were abandoned, they say, the web as we know it today could disappear.
Google could pay by itself the guilt of a wrong behavior, the omission of control. Although it remains to ask why, almost every day, children in school can hit their schoolfriends without any controls. And most of the times this happens where basic education should be taught.