Differing Values: Google and Italy

Google isn't like other companies. It proclaims that its core values, like freely spreading information over the internet, dictate its actions and not a desire for profits. But as the anecdote in Ken Auletta's book "Googled" about Esther Dyson, the foreign minister of Denmark, and Singapore's Ambassador shows, that universal values aren't always universal: "This exchange was a reminder that "common values" are not always common, and that Google, whose mission is to share and make the world's information accessible, will always have government bears to contend with". And the most recent of these bears is the Italian courts, who just a couple days ago passed down a decision against Google in a privacy case.

The case was over a video of an autistic child being bullied by other children that appeared on a Google service site for a couple of months in 2006. But the case represented the incredible difference in the value of privacy between European nations and the United States. The Italian Court sentenced the three Google Executives to 6 months of prison for failing to remove the video when it first appeared, a decision more symbolic than literal as the sentences were suspended. This case would never surface in America due to the 1996 Communications Decency Act which absolves internet companies of liability for most of the content posted by their users.

Even the Constitutions of the European Union and the United States differ drastically in their value of privacy and freedom of speech. Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights proclaims the right of individuals to their privacy, while the right to free speech doesn't appear until Article 10. America, however, prides itself on its freedom of speech which appears as the First Amendment. The value of individual privacy, with the exception of government searches, makes no direct appearance in the Constitution.

Google, along with America, believes in the power of the individual, their right to free speech and knowledge, and the use of the internet as a conduit for spreading these values. But for Google to believe that their set of values is the only set of values around the world is foolish and naive. As the Italian Court decision shows, other countries are not scared to go head to head with this massive corporation if they clash with their laws and beliefs. And if Google cannot understand the differing values around the world, it could prove to be their undoing.

Works Cited:

Ken Auletta's "Googled"

The New York Times "When American and European Ideas of Privacy Collide"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/weekinreview/28liptak.html?ref=weekinreview