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WASHINGTON — “On the Internet, the First Amendment is a local ordinance,” said Fred H. Cate, a law professor at Indiana University. He was talking about last week’s ruling from an Italian court that Google executives had violated Italian privacy law by allowing users to post a video on one of its services.

In one sense, the ruling was a nice discussion starter about how much responsibility to place on services like Google for offensive content that they passively distribute.

But in a deeper sense, it called attention to the profound European commitment to privacy, one that threatens the American conception of free expression and could restrict the flow of information on the Internet to everyone.

“Americans to this day don’t fully appreciate how Europeans regard privacy,” said Jane Kirtley, who teaches media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota. “The reality is that they consider privacy a fundamental human right.”

Google understands.

“The framework in Europe is of privacy as a human-dignity right,” said Nicole Wong, a lawyer with the company. “As enforced in the U.S., it’s a consumer-protection right.”

But Ms. Wong said Google’s policies on invasion of privacy, like its policies on hate speech, pornography and extreme violence, were best applied uniformly around the world. Trying to meet all the differing local standards “will make you tear your hair out and be paralyzed.”

The three Google executives were sentenced to six months in prison for failing to block a video showing an autistic boy being bullied by other students. The video was on line for two months in 2006, and was promptly removed after Google received a formal complaint. The prison sentences were suspended.

Still, Judge Oscar Magi’s ruling, in effect, balanced privacy against free speech and ruled in favor of the former. And given the borderless quality of the Internet, that balance has the potential to affect nations that prefer to tilt toward the values protected by the First Amendment.

“For many purposes, the European Union is today the effective sovereign of global privacy law,” Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu wrote in their book “Who Controls the Internet?” in 2006.

This may sound odd in America, where the First Amendment has pride of place in the Bill of Rights. In Europe, privacy comes first.

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights says, “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” The First Amendment’s distant cousin comes later, in Article 10.

Americans like privacy, too, but they think about it in a different way, as an aspect of liberty and a protection against government overreaching, particularly into the home. Continental privacy protections, by contrast, focus on protecting people from having their lives exposed to public view, especially in the mass media.

The title of a Yale Law Journal article by James Q. Whitman captured the tension: “The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity Versus Liberty.” And historical experience helps explain the differing priorities.

“The privacy protections we see reflected in modern European law are a response to the Gestapo and the Stasi,” Professor Cate said, referring to the reviled Nazi and East German secret police — totalitarian regimes that used informers, surveillance and blackmail to maintain their power, creating a web of anxiety and betrayal that permeated those societies. “We haven’t really lived through that in the United States,” he said.

American experience has been entirely different, said Lee Levine, a Washington lawyer who has taught media law in America and France. “So much of the revolution that created our legal system was a reaction to excesses of government in areas of press and speech,” he said.

It was not until 1890 that Samuel Warren and Louis D flexcheck cash advance. Brandeis wrote “The Right to Privacy,” their groundbreaking Harvard Law Review article. Influential though it was, it came awfully late in the life of the republic.

The word privacy does not appear in the Constitution, and, outside the context of government searches, the document has almost nothing to say about the concept. This was perhaps best demonstrated by how hard the Supreme Court had to work in Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 ruling that established a right to marital privacy.

That right, Justice William O. Douglas wrote, was suggested by the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Amendments. The “specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees,” he wrote, in a much-mocked passage.

European courts, by contrast, have Article 8.

In 2004, the European Court of Human Rights relied on it to rule that Princess Caroline of Monaco could block German magazines from publishing pictures of her — quite tame pictures — that had been taken in public. “I believe that the courts have to some extent and under American influence made a fetish of the freedom of the press,” Judge Bostjan M. Zupancic of Slovenia wrote in a concurrence. “It is time that the pendulum swung back to a different kind of balance between what is private and secluded and what is public and unshielded.”

The differing conceptions can have profound consequences. “Europeans are likely to privilege privacy protection over both economic efficiency and speech,” Susan P. Crawford, who teaches Internet law at the University of Michigan, wrote in an e-mail message. “They’re willing to risk huge economic losses and erect trade barriers in order to protect privacy.”

The Italian prosecution would be unimaginable in America. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 leaves online companies free of liability for transmitting most kinds of unlawful material supplied by others. Prosecutions for truthful speech on matters of public interest are almost certainly barred by the First Amendment.

Still, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, there may be something to learn from the Italian episode. “This video was enormously controversial, widely seen and very upsetting,” he said. “Sometimes,” he added, “there are egregious acts and there should be some responsibility.”

But Professor Crawford cautioned against thinking about the problem in categorical terms. Privacy is a broad enough concept, and Europe and America are varied enough, that it is easy to find counterexamples. Britain, for one, is only slowly moving toward the Continental model.

And what Italian prosecutors labeled a battle over principle may well have had another goal.

“Italian media is full of naked women and embarrassing revelations about both celebrities and ordinary people,” Professor Crawford wrote. “Any concern for privacy in this case is a pious cover for an (also naked) assertion of power over online companies.”

In some ways the Italian video represents the easy case. Google was merely a conduit for other people’s information, and that may well be enough to protect it in most of Europe.

The harder cases arise when Google is more active in gathering and disseminating information, as in its StreetView service, which provides ground-level panoramas gathered by cars with cameras on them. The program has generated legal challenges in Switzerland and Germany.

“Google is digitizing the world and expecting the world to conform to Google’s norms and conduct,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, who teaches media studies and law at the University of Virginia. “That’s a terribly naïve view of privacy and responsibility.”

When American and European Ideas of Privacy Collide

Hot News: Earnings Preview: Dish Network Corp.

OSLO – Norwegian telecommunications group Telenor ASA on Wednesday reported a 25 percent jump in fourth-quarter profits, primarily thanks to growth in Asia, but said it may have to cut costs this year to strengthen its finances.

Net profit rose to 2.5 billion kroner ($425 million) in the October-December period, from just under 2 billion kroner a year earlier. Revenues slipped to 24.2 billion kroner during that time, from 25.9 billion kroner in the fourth quarter of 2008. That excludes pro forma figures from Telenor’s troubled Ukrainian holding Kyivstar that were also provided for comparative reasons.

Telenor shares dropped 3 percent, to 75.85 kroner ($12.84), in morning trading in Oslo.

A strong quarter for Telenor in the Pakistani, Thai and Bangladeshi markets, as well as in the company’s consistently strong Scandinavian operations, contributed to a sustained revenue stream.

New subscriptions in these markets offset slumping revenues from Telenor’s operations in Eastern Europe, where the global financial crunch has depressed the telecoms market. Telenor subscriptions grew by 2 million in the fourth quarter.

Carnegie analyst Espen Torgersen said the result was “substantially over market expectation free credit scores.” He attributed the negative market reaction to Telenor’s lower-than-expected outlook for 2010.

Telenor CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas warned of potential cost-cutting measures in 2010 to cope with hits to the group’s finances in the wake of the financial crisis.

Telenor “will strive to secure our market positions, while capturing organic growth opportunities. We will continue to implement necessary efficiency measures and provide innovative and viable solutions to our customers,” Baksaas said.

Among its priorities in 2010 are the expansion of its Indian subsidiary, which launched on Dec. 22, and the end of a long and expensive legal battle with Russian conglomerate Alfa Group over joint operations in Russia and Ukraine.

Telenor employs more than 40,000 people in 14 countries and claims 174 million subscribers worldwide.

___

On the Net:

http://www.telenor.com

Norway’s Telenor posts 25 pct rise in Q4 profits

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — Beware of the law of unintended consequences.

Judging by the testimony that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is expected to give later this week to the House Financial Services Committee, it won’t be long before the central bank starts to drain some of the excess liquidity now sloshing around in the financial system, thus raising interest rates. (See WSJ story on outline of Fed’s ‘exit strategy.’)

It can’t come a moment too soon for the silent majority — the nation’s savers.

In its efforts to shore up the banking system, the Fed has neglected the needs of those who save. And in case you did not know it, savers make up the bulk of the population.

Business and governments are net borrowers; consumers are net savers. Foremost among those who save are those who are trying to build a nest egg for their retirement — not to mention those who are actually retired.

Lately, these folks and others who live on a fixed income have fallen behind the eight-ball. Besides losing some $13 trillion in wealth because of the drop in prices of homes and stocks several years ago, they have to deal with below-radar inflation, which is eroding the purchasing power of their savings. ( See March 24, 2009 column.)

To make matters even worse, many retirees are finding that their monthly Social Security payment has shrunk, compared with the amount they received last year, while those who are veterans on disability did not receive their annual cost-of-living increase in their pensions this year.

Since the end of 2008, those who keep their savings in a regular savings account at their neighborhood bank have earned virtually nothing on their savings because of the Fed’s ultra-low interest rate policy paydayloans.

The key overnight federal funds rate on which these interest rates are based has hovered in a range of 0%-0.25% for over 15 months.

In order for savers to earn a decent rate of return on their funds, their banks require them to lock up their money in a certificate of deposit for a number of years. Beyond that, savers have to turn to longer-dated Treasurys or take a chance with junk bonds or the stock market.

Borrowers, naturally, like low interest rates, especially the biggest borrower of them all — the federal government. The same goes for the banks.

Speaking of which, bedsides receiving less than a penny per dollar in their savings accounts, savers many times have to pay their banks a fee for maintaining these accounts as well as their checking accounts.

To add insult to injury, the banks have drastically reduced their lending to individuals and to most businesses. Instead, they prefer to take advantage of the big difference between their cost of funds and yields available on longer-dated securities and buy Treasurys.

Playing the yield curve, as this is called, has enabled the banks to earn hefty profits, thus hastening their return to a pink-cheeked state of health.

Since the banks are apparently in good financial shape, it’s time for the Fed to consider the needs of the silent majority — the nation’s savers — and raise rates so that they can become healthy, too.

Irwin Kellner: It’s time for the Fed to help savers

CAMARILLO, Calif. – The average price of regular gasoline in the United States fell 5.76 cents over a two-week period to $2.67.

That’s according to the national Lundberg Survey of fuel prices released Sunday.

Analyst Trilby Lundberg says the average price for a gallon of mid-grade was $2.80. Premium was at $2.91.

Cheyenne, Wyo., had the lowest average price among cities surveyed at $2 short term personal loan.38 a gallon for regular. Honolulu was the highest at $3.32.

In California, a gallon of regular cost an average of $2.94.

Fresno had the state’s least expensive gas at $2.86 a gallon. San Francisco remained the steepest at $2.97.

Average gas prices down 5.76 cents nationwide

BERLIN – Industrial production in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, was down 2.6 percent on the month in December, government data showed Friday — a drop propelled in part by weaker car production.

The performance compared with a modest rise of 0.7 percent in November and was much worse than the 0.6 percent increase that economists had forecast.

While production of consumer goods rose by 1.5 percent, there were big drops in other sectors, such as so-called investment goods such as machinery. The Economy Ministry said those stemmed largely from weaker production of chemical products and motor vehicles.

Car sales in Germany were boosted for much of last year by a government car-scrapping bonus program, but that expired in September.

Output in the construction sector also was down, declining by 2.6 percent.

The Economy Ministry acknowledged that industrial production lost the momentum of the previous two quarters at the end of last year, but said the quarter-on-quarter trend remained positive in the October-December period, rising 0.3 percent get a free credit report.

The impact of lower car production was “likely exacerbated by temporary plant closures during the Christmas holidays,” said Alexander Koch, an economist at UniCredit in Munich.

“The temporary boost from the car-scrapping premium helped to stabilize domestic sales earlier in 2009 and now weighs on the overall industrial dynamic,” he added.

The government has forecast that Germany’s economy will grow by a steady but unspectacular 1.4 percent this year as the export markets that traditionally have fueled its performance pick up.

While domestic demand looks subdued and a long cold snap could weigh on construction in the first quarter, “the outlook for ongoing solid fresh supply of foreign demand still remains intact,” Koch said.

On Thursday, the Economy Ministry said that German industrial orders were down 2.3 percent on the month in December, reversing a large gain the previous month.

German industrial production down in December

I have a frequent and pleasant daydream in which the Virginia lottery board calls and says, "Congratulations! You've won the highest jackpot ever! Would you like to take that in a lump sum or divided up over 30 years?" This is truly the stuff of fantasy, though, particularly because I don't buy lottery tickets. Much more realistic for my family is what to do in the face of too many important financial goals and too little money to fund them all.

For example, we have:

Several children to send to college.A retirement to plan for.The desire for an extra-large emergency fund.

In addition, our 1994 Honda Civic and 2000 Dodge Caravan will someday go to the great junkyard in the sky, leaving us scrambling for replacements. And somewhere along the line, we'd like to take a trip to China when our youngest (who was adopted from Jiangsu province) is old enough to remember it.

How does the average American family meet these kinds of goals? And which should take precedence if you can't contribute to them all? If you have similar questions and concerns, here's how you can set about prioritizing your goals.

Goal 1: Emergency FundIf you can accomplish only one of your goals, this is it. Saving at least $200 to $300 a month in a high-yield savings account would be a good first step. Your emergency fund should include enough money to pay for three to six months' worth of basic living expenses (rent or mortgage, utilities, medical bills, groceries, and the like).

Don't let the large sum intimidate you into not saving; set a goal of having your emergency fund fully funded within three years. If your initial goal is to save $10,000, it'll take just $278 a month for 36 months to reach that milestone.

In a true emergency, you can rely on credit cards. But if you can't pay off that debt soon, you'll quickly find yourself going backward financially. Better to have the money squirreled away for a stormy day and to pretend it doesn't exist until disaster strikes.

Get creative: Make a deal with yourself that any "found" or windfall money will go to your emergency fund. Whether it's a tax refund check, cash back on a credit card, or a gift check from great-uncle Joe, deposit it immediately in your savings account. Hold a yearly yard sale with all proceeds to go to your retirement fund.

Goal 2: RetirementSecond (or even better, concurrently), fund your retirement, especially if your contributions to your work plan are matched by your employer (that's free money — plus tax breaks — that you shouldn't pass up). If you don't save for retirement, you won't be able to retire.

Get creative: Once a debt is paid off (for example, the $185 a month you pay on your college loans) continue taking out $185, but now designate it for retirement business cards. That's a painless way to bulk up your savings.

Goal 3: Save for CollegeIt may feel disloyal to many of you to put your children's higher education funds close to the bottom of the list. After all, we're used to putting our kids' needs first in most every other way. However, think about it this way: An emergency requires that you access money because you so desperately need it. Taking money out of a college account such as a 529 savings plan means that the earnings are taxed as ordinary income, plus you'll be slapped with a 10% penalty.

If you don't save for your kids' education, they aren't out of luck; there are scholarships and loans that can fund their higher education needs. No such resources are available if you didn't save for your retirement; you can't borrow your way into a retirement income, and there aren't Golden Years scholarships.

Get creative: If you'll be using a credit card anyway, why not sign up for a Upromise credit card that lets you save for your child's college education while you spend? When you use these cards at participating merchants, you'll get a small rebate deposited into a 529 savings account for your child. Grandparents can sign up too and link their cards to your child's account.

Goal 4: Vacation FundAs a mental-health therapist, it pains me to put this at the very bottom of the list. After all, a well-balanced life includes relaxation and fun, especially in today's fast-paced world. Time away can help you put things into perspective and help your cares melt away. But the hard truth is that a vacation is a luxury that someone without an emergency fund can't really afford to take. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go for a cheaper version of R&R, however.

Get creative: Cut one of your household perks: Switch to a lower tier of cable, or cancel altogether, cut your lawn yourself, reduce your cell phone charges, or go out to eat less. A savings of just $5 a day adds up to a nifty $1,825 in one year.

In an ideal world, all of us would have enough money for all of the things we want to do. But if your real world involves making tough choices, start with establishing an emergency fund, and follow this roadmap all the way to financial security.

For more Foolishness:

And the Worst Stock for 2010 Is Why Are Homeowners Idiots?6 Companies You Can Buy Today

Juggling Your Financial Goals

FACTORY GROWTH AHEAD: Manufacturers’ new orders, a signal of future production, soared to their highest point since 2004. Companies said their customers’ inventories were still too low, so they foresee more production as customers restock.

HIRING UNLIKELY SOON: Rising production won’t necessarily equal a bump in full-time hires. Manufacturers still have excess capacity and access to contract labor. Jobs are scarce, and wages and salaries crept up only 0.1 percent in December. Many economists expect economic growth to slow to about 2 cashadvance.5 percent for the full year as spending remains constrained.

HOUSING ROCKY: Construction spending dropped 1.2 percent in December despite support from the Federal Reserve to hold down mortgage rates and a federal tax credit for homebuyers. Both programs are set to expire this spring.

Summary Box: Manufacturing activity shows strength

BERLIN/ZURICH (Reuters) – German politicians were divided at the weekend over whether to buy the bank data of up to 1,500 possible tax evaders with accounts in Switzerland that media say an informant has offered to sell authorities.

The respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the whistleblower is asking for 2.5 million euros for the confidential data, which tax investigators believe could rake in 100 million euros for German state coffers.

The case risks prompting a fresh row over bank secrecy between Germany and Switzerland. Top Swiss politicians, including President Doris Leuthard, and bankers warned Germany against acquiring the data.

Without citing sources, Financial Times Deutschland reported in its online edition that the data belonged to German clients of HSBC (HSBA.L) and was among the information stolen from its private banking arm in Geneva by ex-employee Herve Falciani.

France already acquired some of that information last year by raiding the computer specialist's house, and used it to track down fraudsters, infuriating Switzerland.

A spokesman for the German Finance Ministry declined to comment on the report but said it would be the responsibility of individual German states to deal with such data.

A senior ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, said Germany would have to carefully check its legal right to purchase the alleged data cash advance.

"I have a problem with handing over money for something that has come into someone's possession in a legally questionable fashion," Guttenberg told Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

Members of the opposition Greens and Social Democrats (SPD) however encouraged the government to buy the data on behalf of "honest taxpayers."

Nicolette Kressl, SPD finance expert, told Die Welt am Sonntag the government should proceed as it did in 2008, when it purchased data on tax evaders from an informant about clients of a Liechtenstein bank.

The case snared former Deutsche Post chief Klaus Zumwinkel, who was given a suspended jail term for evading nearly a million euros in taxes using a Liechtenstein trust.

Former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck repeatedly accused Germany's neighbors Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg of serving as havens for German tax evaders, but the three countries have taken steps in the last year to improve transparency on taxes amid a global crackdown on tax havens.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Hans-Edzard Busemann in Berlin and Catherine Bosley in Zurich; writing by Sarah Marsh; editing by Andrew Roche)

Germany divided over buying secret Swiss bank data

TOKYO – Japan’s trade minister is urging Toyota Motor Corp. to secure the confidence of car buyers in the wake of massive global recalls.

“The scale of the recalls is huge. The situation is serious. It points to the possible dangers a global economy can bring,” Trade Minister Masayuki Naoshima told reporters Friday.

“I would like Toyota to respond properly to secure consumer confidence.”

Toyota — the world’s largest automaker — has recalled 7 payday loans.65 million vehicles in the U.S. over problems with gas pedals and floor mats. It recalled 75,500 vehicles in China for the same acceleration pedal problem.

The auto giant also said it would recall vehicles in Europe due to the accelerator problem, but said the number of recalled vehicles has yet to be determined.

Japan urges Toyota to secure consumer confidence

NEW YORK – A former senior managing director at New Castle Partners hedge fund has pleaded guilty to securities fraud charges, admitting making $900,000 through insider trading.

The plea was entered in federal court in Manhattan Wednesday by Mark Kurland. Kurland pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud.

In doing so, he admitted a role in what prosecutors have described as the largest hedge fund insider trading case in history.

Kurland is the eighth person to plead guilty in a case that has resulted in charges against 21 people so far fast payday loans. They are accused of making tens of millions of dollars through inside trades.

Among those charged is Raj Rajaratnam (RAHJ rah-juh-RUHT’-nuhm), a portfolio manager and one of America’s richest people.

Plea entered in NY in massive insider trading case