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LEGISLATIONAGCOM Regulations regarding Online Copyright Enforcement, 680/13/CONS, December 12, 2013 [Vesting the Italian Communication Authority (AGCOM) with new administrative copyright enforcement powers; copyright enforcement would be done through administrative procedures which would not target direct infringers but rather Internet Service Providers (ISPs).] [For a summary in English, see CIS blog post 1; see also CIS blog post 2, 3] Legislative Decree N. 140, March 16, 2006 Implementing Directive 2004/48/EC [implementing Article 11 of the Enforcement Directive in the following terms: (1) amending Article 156 of the Italian Copyright Law as follows: "who has reason to fear the violation of an economic right to which he is entitled by virtue of this law, or intends to prevent the continuation or repetition of the violation has already occurred both on the part of a direct infringer and an intermediary whose services are used for such a violation may take legal action to ensure that its legal right is established and the continuation of the infringement prohibited; uttering the injunction, the court may fix a sum due to any breach or non-observance subsequently recorded or for any delay in the execution of the measure" (2) amending Article 163(1) of the Italian Copyright Law as follows: "The holder of an economic right may require that an injunction is ordered against any activities, including those making up the services of intermediaries, that violates the economic right itself according to the rules of the Code of Civil Procedure relating to interim proceedings." (3) amending Article 124(1) of the Legislative Decree N. 30, February 10, 2005 or Italian Intellectual Property Code as follows:  "by a judgement ascertaining the infringement of an industrial property right, an injunction from manufacturing, trading and using the items infringing the relevant right and the definitive removal from the channels of commerce towards who owns them or have them available can be ordered. The injunction and the order of the definitive withdrawal from the market can be ordered also against any intermediary which is part in the proceeding and whose services were used to infringe an industrial property right." Legislative Decree N. 68, April 9, 2003 Implementing Directive 2001/29/EC [(1) including a new Article 68bis in the Italian Copyright law stating that "except as provided by the E-Commerce Directive regarding liability of intermediaries, acts of temporary reproduction devoid of economic significance that are transient or incidental and an integral and essential part of a technological process, whose sole purpose is to enable a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary, or a lawful use of a work or other materials, are exempted from the reproduction right." (2) The Legislative Deecree did not include a specific implementation of Article 8(3) of the InfoSoc Directive. Legislative Decree N. 70, April 9, 2003 Implementing Directive 2000/31/EC [Implementing almost verbatim the eCommerce Directive and including mere conduit (Article 14), caching (Article 15), and hosting (Article 16) exemptions for intermediaries, together with the exclusion of a general obligation to monitor (art. 17)] Legislative Decree N. 196, June 30, 2003 Implementing Data Protection Directive [Implementing the Data Protection Directive 95/46 into the “Personal Data Protection Code” or so-called “Privacy Code”.  Instituting a “Personal Data Authority” (“Garante”) an administrative body  responsible for: (Section 154 Data Protection Code) (a) verifying whether data processing operations are carried out in compliance with laws and regulations, (b) receiving reports and complaints, (c) prohibiting, also ex officio, unlawful or unfair data processing operations. The “Garante” can impose sanctions (Section 162 - 162).] Law N. 633, April 22, 1941 on the Protection of Copyright and Neighboring Rights [English Version] [Providing that (1) the acts of temporary reproduction devoid of economic significance which are transient or incidental and an integral and essential part of a technological process and whose sole purpose is to enable a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary, are exempted from the reproduction right (Art. 68-bis); (2) who has reason to fear the violation of an economic right to which he is entitled by virtue of this law, or intends to prevent the continuation or repetition of the violation has already occurred both on the part of a direct infringer and an intermediary whose services are used for such a violation may take legal action to ensure that its legal right is established and the continuation of the infringement prohibited; uttering the injunction, the court may fix a sum due to any breach or non-observance subsequently recorded or for any delay in the execution of the measure (Art. 156); (3) "The holder of an economic right may require that an injunction is ordered against any activities, including those making up the services of intermediaries, that violates the economic right itself according to the rules of the Code of Civil Procedure relating to interim proceedings." (Art. 163(1))].

Administrative RegulationsRegulatory Entity: Communication Authority (AGCOM) [The AGCOM Regulations regarding Online Copyright Enforcement vested the Italian Communication Authority (AGCOM) with new administrative copyright enforcement powers; copyright enforcement would be done through administrative procedures which would not target direct infringers but rather Internet Service Providers (ISPs).] [For a summary in English, see CIS blog post 1; see also CIS blog post , 3.]

DECISIONS

Superior CourtsCorte di Cassazione [Supreme Court], Third Criminal Section, Google-Vividown, 5107/14, December 17,  2013[privacy, intermediary liability, hosting provider, YouTube, criminal liability] [Upholding the Milan Court of Appeal’s judgment and concluding a long dispute between the no-profit association Vividown and Google. (1) Vividown brought a lawsuit against Google because it did not promptly remove a video from YouTube. The video portrayed a minor with the Down syndrome bullied by his classmates. (2) For the Privacy Code article 167 “Any person who, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause harm to another, processes personal data (unlawfully) […] shall be punished, if harm is caused, by imprisonment for between six and eighteen months or, if the offence consists in data communication or dissemination, by imprisonment for between six and twenty-four months, unless the offence is more serious”. (3) The first trial found Google guilty for “not preventing the crime”; the Court’s reasoning was based on a provision of the Italian Criminal Code for which “not preventing a crime is like committing it” (Art 40). The appeal reversed the judgment. The Court ruled that to be found guilty under the article 167 a wilful misconduct must occur. The Corte di Cassazione confirmed the appeal.] [See also Blog Studio Legale Finocchiaro] Corte di Cassazione [Supreme Court], Third Criminal Section, ThePirateBay, 49437/09, September 29, 2009[copyright, access provider, hosting provider, peer-to-peer, torrent site, ISPs, linking, injunction, blocking order] [Endorsing a principle upon which the judiciary is entrusted with the power of ordering the intermediaries to provide a material aid to prevent further copyright infringement by blocking access to websites which are found guilty of the crime provided under Art 173-ter (2) a-bis). The court may order the preliminary seizure of the website through which the operator contributes to the criminal activity of disseminating copyrighted works on the Internet, without authorization. At the same time, the court may require that the ISPs block access to the site in order to debar the illegal dissemination of these works]. Corte di Cassazione [Supreme Court], Third Criminal Section, Coolstreaming and Calciolibero, 33945/06, October 10, 2006[copyright, hosting provider, streaming, sport events, linking, contributory infringment, guidance] [(1) Coolstreaming and Calciolibero facilitated access to soccer games, which were originally streamed by a Chinese broadcaster, by providing online information and links allowing viewers to connect directly to the Chinese servers. (2) Initially, the first two levels of judicial review had denied any form of infringement of others’ exclusive rights through this conduct. However, the Italian Corte di Cassazione reversed. (3) The Court construed indexing and linking as a contributory infringement because “undeniably, the defendants have aided and abetted, through the provision of a system of online guidance, the connection and synchronization to the sporting event; absent the defendants’ activities, the making available to the public of the protected works would not have occurred or would have occurred to a more limited extent.” In the Court’s view, the illegal conduct can be distinguished from, say, a common search engine because Coolstreaming and Calciolibero had come up with actions that causally determined the infringement by providing the users with an online guidance that made the infringement possible. In particular, the Court noted that such guidance included the provision of the necessary technical means to watch the sporting event, such as information on the software that the users had to download in order to watch the stream and links both to the software and the streamed event.]

Lower CourtsCorte d'Appello di Milano [Court of Appeal of Milan], Civil, Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A. (RTI) v. Yahoo! Italia S.r.l. (Yahoo!) et al., 3821/2011, January 7, 2015[copyright, hosting provider,  videosharing, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Video, notice, monitoring] [The Court of Appeal reversed an earlier decision (see below). The appelate decision clarified that RTI had the obligation to indicate in a "detailed, precise and specific manner" the videos that Yahoo! had to remove. Additionally, in view of the Court of Appeal, the court of first instance did not have the power to "impose to a hosting provider general orders or, even worse, general monitoring obligations, which are forbidden by Directive 2000/31/EC." Intermediary liability may arise only if the hosting provider does not act promptly upon a "detailed, precise and specific" notice. Actually, RTI never sent this notice to Yahoo!, therefore the appelate court found in favor of Yahoo! and rejected RTI's claims.] [See also CIS Blog] Tribunale di Roma [Court of Rome], Civil, TMFT Enterprises LLC- Break Media v. Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A. (RTI), April 27, 2016 [(1) The Court of Rome found TMFT Enterprises LLC- Break Media ("Break Media") liable for copyright infringement for the unauthorized streaming of audiovisual content to which Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A. ("RTI") owned the copyright. (2) The Court supported its decision basically on two arguments:

1. Identification of the activity of Break Media as "active hosting" and not just "passive hosting". According to the Court, Break Media is not a simple host of media content but a sophisticated content-provider. Indeed, the activity of Break Media is not limited to the activation of technical procedures for enabling the content to be loaded to the platform ("passive hosting"), but requires of a complex and sophisticated organization of advertising exploitation of the content loaded to the platform which is selected, addressed, related and associated to other contents in order to deliver to the user an audiovisual product, which has a better quality, complexity and a precise and specific autonomy ("active hosting"). As a result, the defenses of the E-Commerce Directive are not applicable, and general rules on liability apply.
2. Effective knowledge of Break Media of transmission of illegal files. Although the communication sent by RTI demanding Break Media the removal of the infringing content from the platform did not identify the specific URL (precise and specific location of the content to be removed), the effective knowledge of the defendant of the infringing nature of the content was enough (which in this case was evident, also by the fact that the content clearly showed the broadcaster’s trademark). (3) The Court of Rome prohibited Break Media from further violating the rights of RTI by imposing a penalty of EUR 1,000 per each day of violation of such prohibition, and condemned Break Media to the payment of damages caused to RTI which were estimated in EUR 115,000 basing on an estimation of the royalties that Break Media would have had to pay for a license to stream the content. Finally, it ordered Break Media to pay expenses of the trial, and to publish the decision for two consecutive times in nation-wide printed and online magazines and in the homepage of Break Media. Tribunale Regionale Amministrativo (TAR) del Lazio [Lazio Regional Administrative Tribunal], Administrative, ANSO, FEMI and Open Media Coalition v. Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM), 2184/2014, June 25, 2014[copyright, administrative, constitutionality, AGCOM, Regulation, adminstrative enforcement, online copyright infringement] [(1) The associations for the defense of freedom of information as well as those representing web-tv, micro web-tv, micromedia hyperlocal, blogs and video blogs, information portals, aggregators and video companies active in the online press are entitled to challenge AGCOM Regulations regarding Online Copyright Enforcement (AGCOM Regulation). (2) The AGCOM Regulation does not primarily enforce copyright but any failure to comply with an order of the Authority. Therefore, this order cannot be considered illegitimate for (a) AGCOM's incompetence to introduce a para-judicial procedure to enforce copyright or (b) inconsistency between this procedure and the rules of law which entrust to the ordinary courts the enforcement of copyright, or even, for (c) breach of the principle of the judge previously ascertained by law in so far as judicial review of AGCOM measures is done by the administrative judge, rather than civil or criminal. (3) The AGCOM Regulation does not violate EU or national law in so far as it provides that the order is addressed only to hosting and access service providers and not to uploader, manager of the page and the website operator. This is because EU and national law provide that ISPs may be subject to supervisory authorities' measures aimed at limiting the negative externalities of their activities (see Art. 8(3), Dir. 2001/29/EC and Art. 11, Dir. 2004/48/EC). (4) The AGCOM Regulation does not violate the adversarial principle in so far as it provides a very short deadline for the submission of counter-arguments. Actually, this principle governs criminal and civil proceedings, and possibly administrative proceedings of contentious nature. It does not apply to purely administrative proceedings, which are governed by the principle of "participation in the proceedings", which can be balanced for reasons of urgency that the authority may identify. (5) The question of the constitutionality of Articles 5(1), 14(3), 15(2), and 16(3), Legislative Decree 70/2003 and Article 32bis(3), Legislative Decree 177/2005, on the basis of which the AGCOM Regulation was adopted,  is not manifestly unfounded. Those provisions may infringe on (a) the principles of "statutory reserve" and judicial protection provided in defense of freedom of expression and economic initiative, as well as (b) the criteria of reasonableness and proportionality in the exercise of legislative discretion and (c) the principle of the natural judge, because of the lack of legal guarantees and judicial safeguards for the exercise of freedom of expression online, at least equivalent to those laid down for the press.] Tribunale di Roma [Tribunal of Rome], Civil, Antonio Angelucci and Giampaolo Angelucci v. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Italia, 70572/09, July 9, 2014[defamation, hosting provider, Wikimedia, Angelucci, Wikipedia, user-generated content, monitoring] [(1) Italian politicians Antonio Angelucci and his son claimed that Wikipedia pages related to the Angeluccis contained false statements supposedly harming the family’s reputation. The allegedly defamatory statements referred to bribery scandals involving the Angeluccis. Although, upon notice of Angelucci’s claim, Wikimedia removed the allegedly defamatory information, the Angeluccis sought €20,000,000 in damages from the Wikimedia Foundation. The plaintiffs argued that Wikimedia should be treated like a content provider, rather than hosting, and should be liable under the stricter standard that apply to the Italian press as an online journal.  (2) The Court of Rome rejected plaintiffs' argument and stated that Wikimedia Foundation serves as a hosting provider in managing the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Therefore, the liability standards applying to the Italian press cannot be extended to Wikimedia, as “unlike the case of press publication, there is no contractual relationship between the author of the [allegedly infringing] content and the hosting provider; and [casting liability upon] this [conduct], coupled with the enormous amount of data uploaded by users, would imply a form of objective liability that cannot find justification in the present [Italian] legal framework.”  (3) In coming down to this conclusion, the Roman Court noted that, while the Directive does not directly apply to the Wikimedia Foundation as a non-EU-based organization, the basic principles of the Directive apply. According to those principles, Wikipedia enjoys an exemption from liability, as a hosting provider, unless “it does not act to remove, or block access to, the infringing information, if it gets explicit notice of this information by the competent authorities.”  (4) Unlike a content provider, a hosting provider does not have any obligation to monitor the content published by its users to prevent defamation of a third party. The court stated that Wikipedia “offers a service which is based on the freedom of the users to draft the various pages of the encyclopedia; it is such freedom that excludes any [obligation to guarantee the absence of offensive content on its sites] and which finds its balance in the possibility for anybody to modify contents and ask for their removal.”  (5) The court also excluded any form of liability of Wikipedia for carrying out a “dangerous activity.” Theoretically, Article 2050 of the Italian Civil Code would provide a legal basis for this type of liability. As the Court noted, this liability may follow from the “danger of uncontrolled, immediate and pervasive circulation of news that the online platform [managed by Wikimedia] may allow to an indiscriminate number of people.” However, the Court went on to state that Wikimedia was very clear in its disclaimers about its neutral role in the creation and maintenance of content. This disclaimer about the truthfulness of any statements included in Wikipedia would “exclude any involvement of the hosting provider in the defamation.”] [see also CIS Blog post.] Tribunale di Roma [Tribunal of Rome], Criminal, Operation EyeMoon, July 2014[copyright, infringment, hosting provider, video streaming, movie, EyeMoon, Mega, Mail.ru, blocking order] [(1) The Tribunal of Rome ordered Internet Service Providers to block access in Italy to the ip addresses of 24 websites hosting copyrighted content without the rightsholders’ consent. (2) Acting upon a claim of a small Italian independent distributor, the Italian authorities started a large-scale anti-piracy operation, labelled “Operation EyeMoon,” that lead to the injunction issued by the Roman court. (3) The blocking order includes well known illegal movie streaming websites, such as cineblog01.net, cineblog01.tv, ddlstorage.com, divxstage.eu, easybytez.com, filminstreaming.eu, filmstream.info, firedrive.com, movshare.sx, nowdownload.ag, nowdownload.sx, nowvideo.sx, piratestreaming.net, primeshare.tv, putlocker.com, rapidvideo.tv, sockshare.com, uploadable.ch, uploadinc.com, video.tt, videopremium.me, youwatch.org. (4) However, the order also targeted Mail.ru and Mega.co.nz. Mail.ru is the most-visited Russian website and the largest Russian Internet company. As for Mega, it is a new cloud storage service created by Kim Dotcom.] Tribunale di Torino [Tribunal of Turin], Civil, IP Specialized Section, Delta TV Programs S.rl. v. YouTube et al, June 23, 2014[copyright, hosting provider, You Tube, Delta TV, videos, soap opera, notice, monitoring, content ID] [Reversing en banc a previous judgment of the same Tribunal of May 5, 2014 (see below). This time, the Court accepted Delta TV’s request for interim injunction against Google and YouTube for copyright infringement of certain South American soap operas that users had uploaded to YouTube. In this case, Google complied with its notice and take down policy, and the videos were removed as soon as the specific URLs were provided by Delta TV. Nevertheless, the Court agreed with Delta TV’s claims, and ordered Google and YouTube to remove the infringing videos and to prevent further uploads of the same content through the use of its Content ID software (YouTube’s system for automatic detection of uploaded videos that infringe copyright) using as a reference the URLs provided by Delta TV. The Court stressed that these proactive monitoring obligations derive from the fact that YouTube is a “new generation” hosting service, a role that brought on it a greater responsibility to protect third parties’ rights.] Tribunale di Torino [Tribunal of Turin], Civil, IP Specialized Section, Delta TV Programs S.rl. v. YouTube et al, May 5, 2014[copyright, hosting provider, You Tube, Delta TV, videos, soap opera, notice, active host] [Rejecting Delta TV’s request for interim injunction against YouTube for copyright infringement on certain South American soap operas which had been uploaded by YouTube users. Delta TV sued Google and YouTube and filed for an interim injunction asking the Court to order Google to remove the infringing videos, prohibiting further violations and imposing a penalty of EUR 1,000 per day for each violation of the Court’s order. However, the Court rejected the request on the basis that (i) there is no obligation on the part of Google and YouTube, as hosting providers, to assess the actual ownership of the copyrights in videos uploaded by individual users, (ii) the only liability hypothetically attributable to Google and YouTube relates to cases where they are specifically informed of the unlawfulness of the uploaded videos and have not removed them (while in this case the videos were removed as soon as the specific URLs were provided by Delta TV), and (iii) there do not exist sufficient evidence to consider Google and YouTube as “active hosts” (thus not shielded by the hosting defence of the E-Commerce Decree). The Court further clarified that in order to trigger the obligation of the hosting provider to remove the infringing videos, it is necessary for the copyright owner to specify the exact URLs where the videos are accessible online.] Tribunale di Milano [Tribunal of Milan], Criminal, Lega Calcio, July 19, 2013[copyright, criminal infringement, streaming, linking, sport events, blocking order] [Ordering Internet Service Providers to block access within Italy to all present and future IP numbers associated with the Rojadirecta domain names, a website linking to football games streamed online without authorization. The criminal prosecution was started upon a claim of the Italian Soccer Association, since the unlawful streaming infringed  its exclusive rights to broadcast the games. As in a similar decision of January 12, 2013, the order was based on Article 171, paragraph 1, letter a-bis of the Italian Copyright Law (see below).] Tribunale di Roma [Tribunal of Rome], Civil, IP Specialized Section, Reti Televisive Italiane v. Il Post, 15055/13, July 16, 2013[copyright, hosting provider, news website, illegal streaming, linking, freedom of the press, freedom of expression] [Ruling that by providing links to streaming services, an Italian news website had infringed on copyrights owned by a major Italian media company in relation to the broadcasting of football matches. Although a simple item of information indicating the availability of streaming football matches websites may constitute the legitimate exercise of right of freedom of the press, the systematic and repeated posting. Using links to matches about to start had the effect of offering to the public a tool for the immediate and easy identification of sites where they can see the event for free. The Court of Rome prohibited the provision, in any way, of information on the name and how to access the websites allowing the unlawful streaming of the Italian media company’s content]. Tribunale di Roma [Tribunal of Rome], Civil, IP Specialized Section, Previti v. Wikimedia, 12262/13, June 20, 2013[defamation, hosting provider, Wikipedia, liability, hosting exemption] [Ruling against the plaintiff - who claimed that Wikipedia was responsible for the inaccurate and defamatory statements posted by individual users on the page devoted to him. The court found that, according to the Italian E-commerce Decree, Wikimedia must be considered a hosting provider, and therefore cannot be liable for the content created by users. The Court concluded that Wikimedia is clear about its role as a hosting provider by means of a general disclaimer and that, while the system is based on users’ freedom to provide entries and add content, the same is balanced by the possibility for anyone to edit errors, modify undesirable content and to ask for its elimination through the community review processes]. Tribunale di Milano [Tribunal of Milan], Civil, Paoletti et all v. Google, 68306/12, March 25, 2013[defamation, search engine, Google Autocomplete, liability, caching exemption]  [Reversing its previous decision of March 24, 2011 on the liability of search engines for the results generated by the "auto-complete" function. The court resoned that those results are not "stored not structured, organized or influenced by Google, which simply analyzes their polularity and releases them through automatic software on the basis of an algorithm"; therefore, Google cannot be considered a "content provider" but is instead a catching service, intended to facilitate users' access to online information, and as such exempted from liability for the information it stores; the decision was delivered in connection with a damage claim against Google on the basis that its "auto-complete" function predicted defamatory words when a user begun to enter the name of the plaintiff or his industry association]. Tribunale di Milano [Tribunal of Milan], Criminal, Reti Televisive Italiane, January 12, 2013[copyright, criminal infringement, access provider, ISP, streaming, linking, sport events, blocking order] [Ordering Internet Service Providers to block access to 10 websites streaming football games without authorization upon a claim of the main Italian private broadcaster (RTI-Mediaset), since the unlawful streaming infringed its exclusive rights to broadcast the games. The order was on Article 171-ter (2) a-bis of the Italian Copyright Law, which punishes with a criminal fine whomever makes available to the public 1a copyrighted work by inserting it into a computer system, without authorization, through connections of any type. In particular, the court specified that football games, per se, may not be considered as copyrighted works, while video recordings of the same, characterized by a specific technical and creative contribution, may be considered as such]. Tribunale di Milano [Tribunal of Milan], Criminal, Mondadori, November 22, 2012[copyright, criminal infringement, access providers, ISP, handling of stolen goods, newspapers, linking, blocking order] [At the request of Italy’s largest publishing company, Mondadori, the court ordered all Italian Internet Service Providers to block access within the Italian terriory to Avaxhome.ws, a popular website featuring links posted by users to online services hosting PDF copies of worldwide newspapers. The order was based not only on criminal copyright infringement, but also on the crime of handling stolen goods. This could imply that not only the website operators but also the website users might risk criminal consequences for posting links]. Tribunale di Milano [Tribunal of Milan], Civil, Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A. (RTI) v. Yahoo! Italia S.r.l. (Yahoo!) et al., 3821/11, September 9, 2011[copyright, hosting provider, videosharing, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Video, notice, monitoring] [The Court of Milan found Yahoo! liable for copyright infringement. Infringement supposedly occurred with the publication of fragments of television programs through the now deceased Yahoo! Video service. The Court stated that the hosting safe harbor of the E-Commerce Directive could not be applied where the service is not a mere passive hosting of users' data, but is instead an "active hosting".] Tribunale di Roma [Tribunal of Rome], Civil, IP Specialized Section, Reti Televisive Italiane v. Rojadirecta, August 17, 2011[copyright, hosting provider, illegal streaming, sport events, linking] [Concluding that Rojadirecta “consciously and willfully” aided and abetted the infringement of the right to broadcasting sporting events because the links, which may in itself be legit, were integrated in a broader activity facilitating and contributing to the infringement of the exclusive rights of the rightholders. Rojadirecta had  knowledge of the unlawfulness of its actions with the clear goal of commercially exploiting the broadcasted sporting events through the placement of advertisements].

Administrative proceduresPrivacy Authority ("Garante") Decision about the Publication on a Newspaper Bulletin Board of Personal Data concerning Heath, doc. web n. 1821322, May 19, 2011[privacy, hosting provider, bulletin board, right to access personal data and other right] [The claimant asked the newspaper to remove the message herself posted on the board. She claimed she was not aware of the public nature of the board and she deemed her post reviling sensitive data about her health. The Garante intimated to the newspaper to remove the claimant post. The newspaper initially failed to remove the post which was later deleted after further requests. The newspaper was responsible for the payment of the proceeding costs (about 500 Euros)] Privacy Authority ("Garante") Decision about the Request of Deleting a “Tag” from a Facebook Picture, doc. web n. 1712776, 18 February 2010[privacy, hosting provider, facebook pictures, sensitive data, tag] [The claimant requested to force Facebook to remove of a “tag” from a Facebook photo able to identify her and her sexual orientation. The Garante rejected the complaint because the law does not apply if (a) the profile data processing was carried out only for personal use (b) there is not “diffusion”: the profile was “closed” and therefore there was not diffusion to the public (c) the claimant can autonomously remove the tag.] Privacy Authority ("Garante") Decision about “The Right to be Forgotten”: Obsolete Information Found in Online Archives of Newspapers through Search Engines, doc. web n. 1583162, December 11, 2008[privacy, right to be forgotten, search engines, online archives] [The claimant was seeking to remove an article concerning an investigation about him dated 1993. The claimant was later found innocent in connection with the investigation described in the article. The articles were still available online. The Privacy Authority rejected the complaint against Google for lack of jurisdiction because the “data processing” through cache copies does not take place in Italy nor in any European country.]

OTHER RESOURCESAutorita' per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM), Diritto d'Autore [Italian Communication Authority, Copyright]Nexa Center for Internet and Society, Observations on the Italian Communication Authority’s Regulatory Scheme [Italian Only] [For a summary in English see CIS blog post]Osservatorio Censura [Censorship Observatory]

CONTRIBUTORSGiancarlo F. FrosioStanford Law SchoolEmail: gcfrosio at law.stanford.edu F. Saverio LigiBaker & McKenzie, Rome, AssociateEmail: saverio.ligi at bakermckenzie.com[personal page] Nora MariOsborne Clarke, MilanEmail: nora.mari@osborneclarke.com[personal page]

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