Kerry: Sending Google execs to prison ‘unjust’

by Kim Hart - 02/24/10 10:22 PM ET

The Italian court acted because of an offensive video hosted on a Google web site.

While Kerry called the video depicting students bullying a boy with Down Syndrome “sickening,” he said “justice is not served by criminalizing those who simply work for a company that hosts content on the Internet.”

Google took down the video as soon as it was asked to do so.

“To hold Google employees criminally responsible for the actions of its users is unjust,” said Kerry, who chairs the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Technology and the Internet. “It creates a dangerous precedent that people who work at Internet companies are responsible for the actions of others.”

User-generated content creates sticky legal situations abroad because of the stark differences between European countries’ privacy and publication laws.

Google vowed to appeal the decision.

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