Google executives convicted in Italy over privacy violations

The BBC News reports that three executives from Google Italy had been convicted of violating the privacy rights by publishing a video of an autistic teenager being bullied The three reported receiving suspended six-month sentences. Google legal counsel is expected to appeal the decision. Google pointed out that the video was removed as soon as it was brought to the firms attention.

This could be an interesting warning to all online service providers about the need to closely watch what is being published about an audience without their permission.

With all the defacement's of web sites that have taken place, and the current state of controls and auditing around web services would the company be held liable for material appearing on their web sites through known control weaknesses. Defacement's of public websites have not been in the news lately but if there can be criminal charges brought against corporate officers for unattended to known control weaknesses that could lead to individual privacy violations could be this a more attractive disruptive business attack?

ZDNET has published an article on their site that the executives were wrongfully accused
Forrester Research has published a Data Protection Heat Map "Outlining regulations governing privacy and data protection by country. The privacy heat map does a great job of visually defining the degree of legal strictness across a range of nations.

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