Google execs convicted in Italy

A court in Milan on Wednesday convicted three Google Italy executives over an Internet video showing a handicapped teenager being bullied, Google spokesman Bill Echikson said.

Each executive was given a six-month suspended sentence for violation of privacy, Echikson told AFP, adding that Google would appeal the verdict.

The video, uploaded on Google Video where it remained for nearly two months in late 2006, showed four students bullying the teenager with Down's syndrome in front of more than a dozen others who did not intervene.

The bullies were suspended from their school in Turin, northern Italy, for the rest of the academic year over the episode, which sparked a national furore.