See "Google Rests Its Defense of Executives in Italian Privacy Case" from the New York Times.

My apologies if this has already been posted/discussed, but I didn't find it searching. Should this case go against Google, it seems that there would be enormous implications for Wikipedia. I'm not really familiar with Italian law at all, but I think it's interesting that the Google executives were named personally as defendants. Perhaps some day we'll see Jimmy Wales in an Italian jail?

For some more background, see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/technolo...ml?pagewanted=1.

Maybe, but i think he and google are too big to be really caught into something like this... but nonetheless there has been much aggression against web 2.0 sites in Italy. As compiled in those pages, there have been various cases; YouTube getting sued because it contains videos from the local Big Brother program transmitted on Mediaset (three television channels owned by Berlusconi's son...), the "Wikipedia Italia" (which doesn't exist, there is the italian chapter called Wikimedia Italia) getting sued for 20 million € because of a biography of a politician which contained information he saw and didn't like (and the content is hosted in a server located in the U.S. in any case, not here, so it doesn't really make much sense and they should in any case protest against the WMF); threats to censor Facebook and YouTube because they "promote violence" and "there are fascist groups"...

Another case for wikipedia is that a biography has been "sequestered" by the Postal Police http://wikipedia.it/wiki/Roberto_Fiore (they could do it because it is a domain hosted in italy, which mirrored the page), and admins obscured the page on wikipedia http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Fiore due to legal threats.

Some approximate translations of a discussion related to legal threats, suing people on Wikipedia, etc., which hopefully retain the original message:

"Yeah, you are naive and believe in fairy tales. Wikipedia is structured in a way that allows Joe to write some bullshit and Bob can be sued (even if unfairly). Bob gets sued (even if unfairly). At that point Bob is in deep shit, and he may be innocent, but for the moment he will have to pay a good lawyer, spend a lot of time and get a lot of stress. Wikimedia Italia can only pay Lionel Hutz and WMF is so slow in taking decisions that one can die in prison of old age before they decide to do something." --Snowdog

"Ok, Snowdog, as i said let's stop playing around and pretending that this is a free project, and let's just close the shop. It's clear that in the end it.wiki is not a free encyclopedia at all, and since the third pillar crumbled, it's time for all of us to go home and good night." -- other guy

"You are the reason advertising exists. You read "free encyclopedia" and you believe it really is. The free encyclopedia is what we are trying to build, but there are also enemies to fight. If you are strong you can fight them face to face. Otherwise you just back down and get ready for the next time. Without any whining like "close the shop". Get a fucking dose of reality. This project will not end because of a page which gets erased as a form of precaution, but when they will be able to take one of us to trial for something he isn't guilty of, and the others will start asking themselves whether all of this is worth the hassle." --Snowdog

More about Wikimedia Italia getting sued for 20 million € http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gianfran...0,000_%E2%82%AC

I think the most interesting sentence in that is:

Note the perplexed bemusement that this "fact" is not understood by the Italian Law. I know nothing about Italian law, but it would not surprise me if it worked differently than US law and it is quite possible that there is something they could be charged with. You also have to remember that the incumbent prime minister has used his powers for some time to bend law to his interests, so it could well be that there are more troubles than the Italian Wikimedia hope.

So if the Italian Wikimedia are tied up in legislation for years to come, perhaps they might consider that if they had taken steps to control the publication of defamatory material rather than simply throw their hands up and say "You can't blame us for what is on our own website" they might consider whether they have really thought through the implications of BLP in a world where people can bring speculative law suits.

I could quite see the time that Jimbo flies into a country with different legal standards and finds himself under arrest as the representative of an organisation that had defamed local dignatories. They will not be very interested in s230.

So if the plaintiffs win the case, what will happen? Is Wikimedia Italia even a legal entity, or are the defendants the committee or indeed all members of Wikimedia Italia, and if the latter is that everyone on their mailing list? Are there any Wikimedia assets that can be seized or would the courts impose the fine on members?