Four Google executives are currently facing criminal charges in Italy, New York Times’ Saul Hansell and the International Association of Privacy Professionals have revealed, concerning a 191 minute cellphone video from 2006.

In the latter, four high school students are showed taunting a boy suffering from Down Syndrome, while the content was posted to Google’s Italian site and afterwards rapidly removed following complaints.

Consequently, Google executives David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, George Reyes, former Chief Financial Officer, Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel, along with an unnamed employee are now facing charges since prosecutors claim that the video should not have been posted at all.

Milan public prosecutor Francesco Cajani stated that because the execs had allowed the video to be published on Google’s website, they had violated the Italian penal code.

Currently, Cajani is prosecuting Google as an Internet content provider, since the Italian penal code reads that the latter are to be held accountable for any third-party content published on their websites, a rule that also applies to and regulates newspaper and television publishers, yet not Internet service providers (ISPs).

On January 23, 2008, when Peter Fleischer was on his way to deliver a speech at the University of Milan, he was surrounded by five law enforcement officials who eventually allowed him to give his address before escorting him to make a deposition in front of the public prosecutor.