On Wednesday, an Italian court convicted three Google execs on criminal charges for hosting a video on Google Video–which showed a teenager, allegedly with Down’s Syndrome, being bullied by other kids. The video was not posted by Google and when it received a notification from Italian police, it took it down. But Google still got a rap from Italian authorities.
Looking back at the way Italy has been treating tech companies, it makes one wonder if Italy is on its way to being the next China or even Iran–when it comes to internet crackdowns.
The trend isn’t so much related to what is being said on the internet, like in China–but making heavy-handed demands from popular websites like Google, Yahoo and Facebook–making the whole thing feel more like a mafia extortion.
The Guardian goes as far as pointing out that Italian tax authorities demanded that eBay hand over its customer-related information to them,Yahoo was fined 12,000 euros after Milan’s public prosecutor demanded information about private emails sent by suspected criminals; and the Italian interior ministry has required Facebook to hand over personal information about users who created groups said to “glorify” Mafia bosses, and again last October over a group said to promote the violent death of Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister
Unlike the Chinese government that likes to police its cyber-highways strictly–it seems Italy would rather toll the companies on the highway steeply.
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