Struan Robertson, editor of out-law.com, writes on March 3, 2010 in Google convictions reveal two flaws in EU law, not just Italian law inter alia as follows regarding the inexcusable criminal convictions of Google execs - made in absentia in Italy - for alleged untimely takedown of criminally offending video material posted online by youthful criminals in Italy and totally unknown to Google execs at the time for which their criminal conviction for non-action applies:
"Web hosts are unfairly exposed all across the EU and two legal changes are needed....Read the whole posting here.
Problem 1: An unreasonable caveat to safe harbour....
Problem 2: We don't know enough about notice and takedown...."
Robertson in our opinion in focusing on the ill-drafted EU laws and on the shambles of law in Italy is much too lax with the misguided officials in Italy and with the responsible lawmakers in the European Union, all of whom are much more directly at fault than Google for the appearance of the offending video.
Why have government officials in Italy and the EU not instituted effective procedures in their own law enforcement systems to timely catch criminal postings in their areas of jurisdiction - AS IS THEIR JOB, rather than putting the entire onus of "policing" on Google or other online providers. Why should Google be more effective in catching criminals than THE government institutions are - it is not Google's line of business at all.
Everyone always wants to put the blame on the other guy, rather than honestly shouldering their true part of the blame themselves. Policing is a responsibility of government institutions and not of Google. Maybe nations and communities should not have 90% of their officers playing cops and robbers with normal citizens for minor things like traffic violations etc. - and should direct more of the attention of their own State employees to combatting real crime. Now - THAT would be a major change.
If the purpose of Italy's convictions is to seek scapegoats, which the guilty often do to ward culpability away from themselves, it would be equally logical to issue criminal convictions for all those in Italy and the EU responsible for what happened in the instant video case, and we would not stop at judges, legislators and officials, but would also include the teachers and parents of the criminals, who were unable to keep the offenders from doing their offensive acts. Google is at the end of a very long chain of societal and legal blunders and errors which create criminal offenders to begin with.
As it now stands, the people FURTHEST REMOVED from the actual criminal video activity have been held criminally responsible rather than those CLOSEST to it. How convenient for all of the institutions involved, whose members via overinflated salaries are all stuffing their pockets with taxpayer monies but of course disclaiming any responsibility themselves for the state of affairs in their own jurisdiction. Some distant executive from a far-away jurisdiction will be picked to shoulder the blame - a blame which ITALY and the EU rightly should share among themselves.
That is not a miscarriage of justice. It is the ANTITHESIS of justice.
