Author: Nancy Raskauskas, Senior Editor

In a landmark case today, the  Italian court convicted three Google executives of privacy violations saying that they did not act quickly enough to remove an online video that showed sadistic teen bullies pummeling and mocking an autistic boy. In a very closely monitored case around the world, because of it’s implications for Internet privacy and freedom, Italian Judge, Oscar Magi, sentenced the three in absentia to a six-month suspended sentence and absolved them of defamation charges. A fourth defendant, charged only with defamation, was acquitted. All four had denied wrongdoing. The convicted were,Google’s global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer, its senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond and retired chief financial officer George Reyes. Senior product marketing manager Arvind Desikan, based in London, was the one acquitted.Oddly enough no searches for Mr. Desikan came up with any photos or real information although a few autism sites came up as well as odd Google logos of the month. Hmmm… The charges in this case were sought by Vivi Down, an advocacy group for people with Down syndrome, even though the boy does not have the syndrome as reported in many blogs. The group alerted prosecutors to the 2006 video showing an autistic student in Turin being pushed, pummeled with items, and insulted by bullies at school, who called him a “mongoloid”. The  verdict could help determine legally  whether...