Google said it plans to appeal the six-month jail terms given to senior vice-president and chief legal officer David Drummond, former Google Italy board member George De Los Reyes and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer.

The court acquitted Google´s senior product marketing manager, Arvind Desikan.

The complaint was brought by an Italian advocacy group for people with Down´s syndrome, Vivi Down, and the boy´s father.

That´s after four classmates, at a Turin school, put a video on Google showing them bullying the boy.

Down´s syndrome is the most common genetic cause of mental retardation.
The video was filmed with a mobile phone and posted on the site in September 2006.

Google argued that it removed the video immediately after being notified and cooperated with Italian authorities to help identify the bullies and bring them to justice.

It said that, as hosting platforms that do not create their own content, Google Video, YouTube and Facebook cannot be held responsible for content that others upload, comparing the case to prosecuting the postal system for hate letters sent by mail.