An Italian judge has found three Google executives guilty of violating the privacy of an Italian child who was bullied on video in 2006. The video was then posted on Google Video. The video was online for two months, before Google was notified and then removed it. The executives found guilty were not part of making the video. Oscar Magi, an Italian judge, sentenced the executives to a six-month prison sentence.

Google has responded to the sentence with anger. Google calls the decision by the judge "astonishing" and said that it helped the local police find the people who bullied the autistic child. Google said:

"European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them - every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video - then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear."

Google has announced that they will be appealing the ruling made today, and hope that it will be overturned.