The most interesting news from the digital world this week came undisputedly from Italy. Three Google executives were convicted of privacy violations over a YouTube video showing an autistic teenager being bullied.

Among the convicted was Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, who has said he’s “outraged” by a decision he describes as setting a “chilling precedent”.

Richard Thomas, the UK’s former information commissioner and consultant to the privacy law firm Hunton & Williams, told the BBC that the case is simply “ridiculous” and can be compared to suing the Post Office for hate mail sent in the post.

Prosecutors argued that local privacy laws were violated by not seeking consent of all the parties involved before allowing the video to go online.

Several legal experts have deemed the decision as highly worrying.

According to Thomas, it’s unrealistic to expect firms to monitor everything that goes online.

He said in The Independent: “This ruling is simply inconsistent with the way the internet works. There is no UK data law or European law that I know which could lead to this result, where employees of a company are sentenced to suspended jail sentences for being personally criminally liable for the uploading of a video clip in this way.”

Andy Millmore, head of litigation at the media and entertainment law firm Harbottle & Lewis, said the ruling will have major implications for internet service providers.

He told The Independent: “If upheld, it [the decision] will make it theoretically possible to pursue sites for hosting content which has not been posted with the express permission of the people featured.”

As it’s generally concluded, the sheer amount of content uploaded by users to sites such as YouTube, is far too much for anyone to pre-screen.

A Telegraph article argues that feedback from other users is the only practical monitoring system. The piece also makes the point that our ‘instinctive tendency towards voyeurism’ in is conflict with this means of controlling content. A relevant question to ask in this case might be; why a repulsive video of a disabled child being mocked and beaten up became the most viewed on the service? And even further, how did so many viewers fail to click a button that would have alerted the company to its inappropriate content.

Sources: BBC, The Independent, The Telegraph