Testimony began Tuesday in the Italian trial of four Google executives accused of defamation and violating privacy for allowing a video to be posted online showing an autistic youth being abused. All four deny wrongdoing. The case could set the tone for new limits on sharing videos and other content on the Web. Google says the case violates EU rules by trying to place responsibility on providers for content uploaded by users. The Mountain View, California, company also considers the trial a threat to freedom on the Internet because it could force providers into an impossible task, prescreening the thousands of hours of footage uploaded every day onto Web sites like the Google-owned YouTube. Prosecutors and civil plaintiffs insist they don't want to censor the Internet, and maintain the case is about enforcing Italy's privacy rules as well as ensuring large corporations do their utmost to block inappropriate content, or quickly delete it. A ruling is expected in July or after a summer break Elsewhere, Japan's government has found that Google's Street View service does not violate privacy laws if the US Internet giant takes safeguards such as blurring people's faces and car license plates. Street View, where car-mounted cameras take 360-degree footage of urban scenes that are then matched to online city maps, has met a flurry of privacy complaints in Japan and some other countries. But an advisory panel to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry has concluded that the service “will not violate privacy laws” if the company meets certain conditions, ministry official Hideki Murohashi said. These include setting cameras low, blurring identifiable images of individuals, and never entering private properties when shooting, he said. “The company has already taken these measures now,” he added.
