A recent ruling in an Italian court has posed an interesting question regarding the responsibility and accountability of internet content providers in the global worldwide marketplace. From CNET:

Will an Italian court's decision to convict three Google executives of invasion of privacy have widespread effects on the Internet beyond Italian borders?

Google certainly thinks so, but it could take a significant change in thinking around the globe to prove Italy is not an outlier. Three Google executives, including head lawyer David Drummond and Chief Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer, were convicted of invasion of privacy Wednesday by a court in Milan because a video of students taunting an autistic boy was uploaded to Google Video in 2006. George Reyes, who was chief financial officer but left the company in 2008, was also convicted.

The judge ruled that Google had a duty to make sure the video didn't violate Italian privacy laws before it was displayed on Google Video, and since Italian law allows individual employees of a company to be held liable for the actions of their corporations, the individual executives were subject to trial. The obvious implication of the decision is that Google employees are now personally liable for all the content hosted on its site in Italy, forcing the company to either ban user-generated content from its sites or carefully review each submission.

Since the Milan decision could impact "the policy of the U.S government to support Internet freedom around the world," the ongoing developments around this case should prove to be quite interesting.

What's your take -- how do you see the Internet, and where do you stand on how the policies and practices of other nations should impact the availability and access to information? How does this impact the concept of net neutrality here at home, and what other implications do you foresee?

Add your thoughts in the comments; let's see where this takes us. And remember: This is an Open Thread.

Just wondering .... Grab a screencap and share your greeting in the comments.

OH ...

Happy Ho-Ho-Holidays to all of ya.

OK, here's a bit of news and some mental gymnastics for crossover fans and the reality challenged -- ready? Good.

It all started when I read that a potential challenger to Google as the king of search engines now appears to be more of a supplement than a "Google Killer," according to Christopher Dawson of ZD Net.  The application? Wolfram Alpha (the site isn't live at the moment, but I provided the link for completeness).

Going off on a small bout of free-association, "Wolfram" reminds me of Wolfram and Hart from Joss Whedon's Buffyverse, and Alpha draws up a swatch of mismatching data reference points: Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki; the phrase "alpha and omega" -- used in Biblical and other reference material ad infinitem, particularly when dealing with apoloclysms and savior scenarios; Terminator: Salvation (indeed, the entire Terminator franchise) and a weird melange of Omega Man and the Cylon race of Battlestar Galactica, which is not to be confused with Cylon of Athens or the bloody coup where the followers were all wiped out.

...still with me so far?  Hope so...'cuz we're not done yet.

One remaining thread of the frayed free-associative thought process derives from the word nehalem, which my eyes swept across on the same page as the original article (remember the Google killer that is now more of supplement that started all this?), and a few other tidbits blew into focus: the definition of nehalem per the Salish language ("the place where the people live"); a Native American tribe called the nehalem (same link); a mental misdirection (brain fart?) that summoned up the Hebrew word nephilim which is somewhat clumsily translated as "giants" and oft defined as the offspring between humans and "the children of God"; a free-associative offshoot of nephilim that summoned forth the phrase "They Might Be Giants" (from the film, not the band) and the quote "standing on the shoulders of giants".

In the midst of all this, of course, and ignoring the growing background noise as multiple cross-references through ancient history, literature, religious texts and scholarly works both various and sundry began to collide in a growing cacaphony, the concept of angels (via the Bilibical references and the nephilim disconnect) and demons ("Wolfram and Hart") gave rise to Angels and Demons and led back to The Da Vinci Code, conspiracy theories and the deeply embedded human mythos of humanity intermingling (and interbreeding) with "the Divine" (either Christian-Biblical, or Pagan, or Greek Mythos, or any of the other associated myriads of sociological and cultural belief systems).  Along the way, the history remnants of memories about how religions and religious movements impacts history -- often violently -- kept sloughing off and falling to the side of the growing torrent of informational cross-references.

Now, to round everything out, touch-back to the reference point above where my eyes had initially scanned "nehalem" on the page with the article about the Google non-killer-now-likely-supplement (remember that?).  Following up on Intel's advertising campaign for the nehalem components, they stress the advanced intelligence of the chipset -- re-evoking and underscoring both the Teminator and Cylon (BSG) reference points.

How's that for a bout of morning mental gymnastics? 

...hello?

Oh, well.  Maybe next time.  In the meantime, this is an Open Thread.

I love my gMail and would hate to ever be parted from it.  I moved away from using MS Outlook because I simply could not control the SPAM.  I hate SPAM (both the email kind and the canned artificial meat kind).  gMail has all but eliminated the SPAM and I don't have to worry about saving my PST file so I have it when I have to reformat my @#$@#$ VISTA laptop.

Here's a distressing tidbit, via Kula of DailyKos:

...I could singlehandedly be destroying our environment:

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2. Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. "A Google search has a definite environmental impact."

Aw, maaaaaannn, do you know how many simultaneous Google searches I do during an average computing session...?

Is Net Neutrality now in danger, endangered by some of its former advocates? According to Scott Nichols of PC World and Dana Blankenhorn of ZDNet, no. But other might think so, based on a recent WSJ story where the lede misleads: Google Wants Its Own Fast Track on the Web

According to Nichols,

The Wall Street Journal today posted an article claiming that Google, as well as other Net neutrality advocates, were abandoning or softening their views on Net neutrality. The Wall Street Journal specifically attacks Google's OpenEdge project as a means by which Google can have its own content given bandwidth priority over other web sites.

Nichols has a harsh assessment of the WSJ as a result:

It is a simple matter of a publication favoring fear mongering over actual news.

Ouch.  And that's not all...

Today, Google (inadvertently) released their new browser. As usual, I am an early adopter, and so far, I gotta say I am really liking Chrome. It is lite, handles CSS very nicely ... so far, the only drawback I have found is in using WYSIWYG editors ...

Try it! Get it here and let the community know what you think!

Anatoly Kirichenko
Future of the Internet