Google received a piece of bad news - and perhaps a laugh - today as we prepare to go into the long weekend. Here's the serious part: Italian antitrust regulators have decided to expand the focus of an investigation from the Italian version of Google News to the entire corporation.
An overseas branch of Google News may be about to get its parent unit in a lot of trouble. Italian antitrust regulators are investigating claims that newspapers were more or less forced to contribute to the site, and certain tactics and potential penalties suggest the situation is very serious.
In September of 2006, a clip of four Italian youths teasing a teenager with Down syndrome was uploaded to Google Video. Today, the trial of four Google executives on criminal charges of defamation and privacy violations is set to begin in Milan.
Italian anti-mafia activists are alarmed by the presence of Facebook groups that are glorifying the behavior of jailed mafia bosses."Fan clubs" of jailed mafia bosses Bernardo Provenzano, arrested in 2006 after nearly 40 years on the run, and Toto Riina, arrested in 1993 after 24 years at large, have sprung up on the Italian pages of Facebook.
Central Europe loves Facebook. Or parts of it do, anyway. Although the social network didn't really start releasing versions in different languages until March of this year, new reports put Facebook's growth in two countries in the triple digits.
Google executives have been ordered by an Italian prosecutor to stand trial on charges related to a video of a child with Down syndrome being humiliated by other kids who then posted the video on Google Video Italia.
Old fans of "Everybody Loves Raymond" may remember a couple of episodes in which the Barone family visited Italy. All of the usual squabbling stopped as the characters (and quite obviously, the cast) just enjoyed the experience. Now, Google Street View will let its users share some of the same sights.
Seat Pagine Gialle (Seat PG) feels the impact of Google on its advertising business, suffering on the Italian stock market as a result.
In an effort to grow its global audience AOL has launched a dedicated portal for Italy, AOL.it.
Unfortunately, this spoofing has nothing to do with commedia dell'arte; in Italy, attackers are sending spam messages forged to appear to come from lawyers and directing recipients to download malware. There's no reason to think it couldn't happen here or elsewhere.
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