In 2006, some school students in Turin bullied a schoolmate, suffering from autism, and even worse, the incident was recorded and uploaded to YouTube. The Italian police became involved, and notified Google officially about the offending clip–it was taken “down within hours.” Google’s team then cooperated with the police to identify the perpetrators, and the data was subsequently key in convicting the female uploader, who received 10 months community service as a penalty, along with other involved male students.

That’s normally where Google’s involvement would end, right? Except not in this instance. Italy’s legal system finds Google execs to be at fault.

Google’s blog clearly presents the poor victim at the heart of the affair as suffering from autism, but Reuters reported that the the youth concerned had Down syndrome, and that the legal case was brought at the request of the victim’s father and an Italian advocacy group for Down syndrome sufferers, Vivi Down.

Read more about this case here. Who knows how this will turn out, but it sounds like a tricky situation. How do you think this will turn out for Google?