(Reuters) - Italian prosecutors are preparing to file charges in a 2006 case against four Google executives over a video on the Internet provider's Italian-language site, the Wall Street Journal said.
The video shows a disabled teenager taunted by peers.
Prosecutors are expected in September to request that theexecutives stand trial on charges of defamation and violationof privacy for allegedly failing to control the content of thesite adequately, the paper cited people close to the probe assaying.
The executives targeted in the inquiry are the top legalrepresentative and chairman of GOOGLE (GOOG.NQ)s Italian unit at thetime, another Google Italy board member at the time, anexecutive responsible for Google's privacy policies in Europe,and the then-head of Google Video for Europe, the paper said.
The men were put under investigation not for their directrole in the posting of the material in question but becausethey had positions of authority over the operations involved,the people familiar with the probe told the paper.
An Italian advocacy group for Down syndrome, Vividown,prompted the probe in Milan when it lodged a complaint afterbeing alerted to the video in September 2006, the paper said.
A Google spokesman said: "While we reiterate our solidaritywith the boy's family and with Vividown, we firmly believe thatthese proceedings are not about Google Video and what happenedbut about the Internet as we know it - an open and free space."
"We will continue to collaborate with Milan prosecutors toshow that all Googlers under investigation have no involvementin the Vividown case."
(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Additionalreporting by Silvia Molteni in Milan; Editing by Paul Bolding)
