• English Site
• > World

User-Generated Content

Lessons From Italy

By Mark Scott

When fan groups for convicted mafia bosses started popping up on Facebook, Italy got worried. Rome is now considering legislation that would force Internet companies to remove criminal content within 24 hours or face fines as high as $320,000.

Internet giants Google and Facebook aren't getting a warm welcome from the usually laidback Italians. According to media reports, new legislation working its way through Italy's political system could force Internet service providers to block Web pages, say on the search engine or social network, that are viewed to be justifying or encouraging criminal activity. That comes as four Google executives, including chief legal officer, David Drummond - face criminal charges of defamation and privacy infringement over an allegedly offensive video posted to a Google video site over two years ago. Google denies the accusations and is defending the executives.

The proposed legislation -- outlined after local media reported Facebook fan groups for convicted Italian mafia bosses had spouted up on the social network -- would force Internet companies to remove supposedly criminal content within 24 hours or face a fine as high as $320,000. Italian Senator Gianpiero D'Alia told the Bloomberg news agency the law isn't aimed at blocking sites like Facebook or YouTube outright, but instead at forcing them to remove individual pages or groups.

The move, along with the outstanding criminal case involving the Google execs, throws up some interesting questions over how user-generated content should be managed on the Internet. For sure, companies must follow the laws of each country they work in. But as Facebook and Google -- let alone the ever-expanding number of similar Internet-based companies -- are multinational firms that use servers worldwide to store and disseminate content, there's uncertainty surrounding which regulation these companies now should be following.

The central question: should Internet companies be held accountable for actions that are illegal in certain jurisdictions, but completely legal in others?

This all might sound academic, but there are real-world consequences to this debate that any would-be Internet exec should keep in mind. According to reports, Google's Paris-based Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer -- one of the execs currently facing criminal charges -- was confronted by five Italian law enforcement officials while he was on his way to give a speech at the University of Milan.

That threat, however small, should give others pause for thought. No exec wants to be looking over his shoulder every time he/she travels on the off chance that his/her company has broken some unknown law that neither he/she, the firm's legal counsel, nor the company's other employees ever knew existed.

Scott is a reporter in BusinessWeek's London bureau.