Google Officials Convicted in Italian Privacy Case

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — Two managers and a former executive of Google Inc. were found guilty of privacy violations by an Italian court, the first such conviction for employees of the world’s most-popular Internet search engine.

Milan Judge Oscar Magi ruled today that David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president of corporate development, and Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel, as well as George Reyes, a former chief financial officer, were guilty of privacy violations. Drummond, Fleischer and Reyes were sentenced to six- month terms, which were suspended. Google said it will appeal “this astonishing decision.”

The precedent-setting ruling may have implications for Google elsewhere in Europe, where governments and regulators have sought to curb its over-arching reach. In the past year, countries from France to Germany have tried to reign in the company’s dominance in areas from books to maps.

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The executives of Mountain View, California-based Google were on trial on charges related to a clip uploaded to Google Video in 2006. The clip was created and posted on the Web by a group of Turin school students, who filmed themselves bullying a disabled classmate.

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