Google has gone from being a search engine to being a world power: it has been pitted against governments and, as Clay Shirky notes, has its own foreign policy. In Italy, on February 24, three Google employees were convicted--with suspended jail sentences--of violating Italy's privacy statutes in relation to a video posted on YouTube, owned by the Web giant.
Shirky rejoins us at GRITtv along with Juan Carlos de Martin, founder and co-director of the Nexa Center for Internet & Society at Italy's Polytechnic University. They discuss the case, the implications for Google and YouTube, and how the Web continues to change and shape our understanding of the world.
Continuing our coverage of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, we bring you more footage from the Ciné Institute, and Victoria Marquez, a member of the Service Employees International Union, tells her story--of struggling for fair treatment in the workplace, and why the U.S. needs comprehensive immigration reform now.
The owner of several downtown New York boutiques was arrested recently and faces four years in jail as well as civil lawsuits for up to $1.5 million. His crime? Not paying his employees for overtime, and paying some of them a flat rate of $340 a week for over 60 hours of work.
Carolina Ferreyra was one of those employees, and when she found a flyer for the Retail Action Project, she helped to launch a protest that led to her boss's arrest. She joins us in studio with Phil Andrews of the Retail Action Project and Paul Sonn, legal co-director of the National Employment Law Project, to talk about wage theft, the problems workers face across the country--and what Obama's administration is doing to fight them.
Gentrification is a problem all over the world, not just in the urban areas of the U.S. In this video from visionOntv, a group of activists in Barcelona, Spain fight back against the pressure on their neighborhood.
Finally, if Warren Buffett is afraid of bankers, why can't regular people get some protection?
Italian courts and law are strange. They offer highs and lows. This particular prosecution seems a lot like the Italian parliament’s restricting of anti-Berlusconi facebook groups. To be fair, those groups playfully promoted or made light of Prime Minister/Richest-Man-in-Italy/Pervert Silvio Berlusconi (and perhaps obviously I’m on the side of those groups), but its an internet speech issue. No western government to my knowledge has criminalized facebook groups that encouraged violence against women, lgbtq folk, or people of color, and there are indeed many of them on facebook.
But it’s true, the judiciary are pretty independent Italy. Recall there was the sentencing inabsentia of a number of CIA agents for renditions (RE: abductions), that that began I think under Prodi, but concluded under Berlusconi. These CIA kidnappers and torturers were not in Italy during the trials, and are still are large, of course.
By criticiseafterdinner on March 3rd, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Google is big,but internet providers are bigger.When these guys get this big,they to be regulated by gov. The Retai Action Project is very good & needed.With the economic meltdown,people are taking another look at globalization.I think globalization has brought us full circle,we started as a colony,and now we have been recolonize.Who? The “Banksters” and Wall st Ponzi Scam.Only a Public National Bank can save us from these people/judgement day. THANKS
By jessie taylor on March 4th, 2010 at 9:43 am