Peter Fleischer, Other Google Execs Still May Face Jail in Italy Privacy Case

AP Image of trial court via KLEWTV.com

 In the latest installment in a case that highlights both the legal risks and absurdity of the cross-border nature of the Internet, the Milanese prosecutor in the case against Peter Fleischer and two other Google executives has asked an appeals court to uphold the six-month jail sentences they received in a criminal privacy case. The case arose out of a 2006 posting to Google Video by Italian teenagers of a short video of a learning-disabled classmate. Although none of the executives had any involvement with the posting or its prompt removal by Google Video after notification, they were still charged (along with another colleague, later acquitted) of violations of Italian privacy law. Fleischer, who was then Google's chief privacy counsel in Europe, was arrested when he traveled from his Paris office to Italy to give a lecture in January 2009. After the case came to trial, Fleischer and two of his colleagues (including Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond) were convicted in February 2010 and given six month sentences, automatically suspended under Italian law. The case was then appealed, leading to the latest development.

Fleischer, in a recent blog entry about the appeal, describes both the facts and the illogical nature of the case against him, given that he and his colleagues had nothing to do with the incident:

Under European law, hosting platforms that do not create content, such as Google Video, YouTube, Bebo, Facebook, and even university bulletin boards, are not legally responsible for the content that others upload onto these sites. But in this instance, a public prosecutor in Milan decided to charge us with criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code.  None of us, however, had anything to do with this video. We did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of us knew the people involved or were even aware of the video's existence until after it was removed.

 This case, similar in many ways to the action in Germany against Compuserve's Felix Somm in 1996, serves as a stark reminder that those associated with companies doing business online may find themselves facing personal liability or even prosecution based on the laws of other countries, even when the individuals had no connection with the activity in question, and even when the activity was fully legal under the laws of the jurisdiction in which the company is based. While it is impossible to research and be certain of compliance with every relevant law in every possible country with access to the Internet, those who work for high-profile businesses, especially companies whose activities may potentially violate particular nations' cultural norms, should at the least be aware of these risks when considering business or personal travel to other regions. Companies, for their part, must include these risks in their overall assessments when choosing to do business online.