An Italian appeals court has finally acquitted 3 Google executives of 2010 charges of having breached the privacy of an Italian boy with autism. All of them were arrested after a video of the boy being bullied was uploaded to the site 7 years ago.


This court ruling overturned a previous ruling in 2010 that had sentenced three Google executives to jail. Now the court didn’t reveal why the case had been thrown out. Of course, Google is happy with the news. The company’s policy manager told the press that Google was happy the earlier ruling wasn’t confirmed, and that the judges recognized the innocence of the executives. The company assured that their thoughts are with the boy and his family for the difficult moments those have endured.

Seven years ago, 4 students at a Turin school uploaded a mobile phone video to Google Video showing them bullying the boy. However, for some reason the prosecutors blamed the company for what happened, saying that the video remained on the Internet for 2 months even though a number of users had published comments asking for it to be removed.

Finally, the complaint was brought by an Italian advocacy group for people suffering Down's Syndrome, Vivi Down, and the boy’s father, and the plaintiffs were initially successful. Three years ago, a court gave each of the 3 Google executives, none of whom were residing in Italy, a 6-month suspended jail sentence. The company pointed out that the executives had nothing to do with the video and couldn’t have removed it even if they wanted.

The company claimed to have deleted the video immediately after being notified and helped Italian coppers to identify the uploaders. However, the case has exposed some odd aspects: for instance, Vivi Down was only involved because it was named by the boys in the clip. The suffered boy had autism, not Down's and they wanted to make sure that message was heard. In addition, the enthusiasm with which the court took to the company was considered suspect in the Italian press. The country’s PM Silvio Berlusconi also took part in a war with YouTube. This particular lawsuit is still ongoing.