Google to Give Data To Brazilian Court 182
Edu writes to mention a Washington Post article about Google's olive branch to the Brazilian courts. Despite previously refusing to reveal search information to the U.S. government, the company has announced they'll be releasing information on hate groups to the Brazilian courts. The move is intended to allow the Brazilian government to identify users associated with homophobic and racist groups. From the article: "Orkut pulls objectionable words and pictures from user sites, but Google stores content it feels could be useful in a lawsuit. Orkut is especially popular in Brazil, which accounts for 75 percent of its 17 million users. Legal and privacy experts said that Google had no choice but to comply with the court order. 'From the law enforcement perspective, if the records are in the possession of the business, the business can be compelled to produce them,' said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center."
Before you start Google-bashing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they should stop warehousing data (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Got news for ya (Score:3, Insightful)
So, no, Google cannot just ignore the laws of countries in which it does business if it doesn't like what they say.
Google right and wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Google was in the wrong for collecting identifying information in the first place. That is where my gripe is. They should be using technical measures to filter out identifying information before it reaches their database. That might include hashing IP addresses for instance so that equality comparisons can be made - but the original IP address rendered unobtainable.
Re:More Nonsense! (Score:5, Insightful)
People of Brazil (including me) know exactly what the government is doing. It is going after people that are going beyond the "free speech" concept and getting into the "conspiracy to commit crime" realm. And it is not only about hate speech (that, in a certain extent, along with racism, is a crime in Brazil) but also members of criminal organizations ("traficantes") gloating about real world crimes like drug trafficking, weapon smuggling, etc.
This is not the government subpoena'ing for data of all users or random users, but users that broke the law in one way or another. There is probable cause, judicial oversight and a clear description of what is being searched.
(btw, as it is evident by some previous silly mistakes, english is not my first language)
Re:This is a horrifying precedent (Score:2, Insightful)
Jurisdiction isn't based on the quality of the legal system.
Unfortunately, though, you are right about the legal system in under-developed countries having a negative impact on investment: a company would rather operate somewhere there is danger of physical violence but can count on the legal system to be fair and consistent (enforce contracts, protect property rights, etc. - think Iraq at the moment) than to operate in a country that might be peaceful but where the legal system is arbitrary and can change at the whim of the ruler (such as most African nations).
Re:Maybe they should stop warehousing data (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Liberty versus Libertine (Score:2, Insightful)
Europe doesn't says that throwing around human sexuality is ok, but saying offensive things is not. It says that even considering something like colour or number of people in a community for anything other than statistics is retarded; and that people should rather have fun. I don't think that is bad.
We all need heroes (Score:5, Insightful)
Google will do what's best for google. End of story. If that means digging in their heels because a legal request is over reaching and would comprimise some aspect of their operations, so be it. If, in another case, it means they hand over the data, that's fair too.
You want a hero? Go hug a firefighter, or a police officer. Or a doctor, or a vet. Not a corporation.
Re:Before you start Google-bashing... (Score:2, Insightful)
I like the fact that google resisted until the end, and I don't like the fact that the government forced him to release this data. This is a bad thing, first because I believe that if someone would like to catch those people, Orkut and sites alike is a good place to infiltrate and investigate. With those actions they are only warning the bad-people to hide and do their navigation more anonymously. So in the end they will probably catch a few people, but it will not solve anything, because the next generation will be more careful.
Re:No Evil. (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't think Google should handover search terms being used: no one can be punished by whatever they want to learn about; but handing over the Orkut data of these guys can lead to putting away a lot of criminals.
For those talking about how google should just ignore brazillian law and shut down the service, I'd love to see Orkut without 75% of their user-base. I don't use Orkut for that matter (too boring to me)... but I think it would be a huge impact.
Regards,
Alexandre Moreira.
PS: Those bastard criminals using social networking to promote/commit crimes should be put away for good!
Re:Google right and wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is a horrifying precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
People in diferent coutries have different morals, some people believe that the laws should reflect their religions, other takes pride in making their government non-religious. The core of this question is that your morals are different from mine, they may even be similar in some aspects but they are different so you can't judge how good is a legal system for me based on your morals.
Re:Maybe they should stop warehousing data (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what cracks me up? A number of times over the last year, I've heard people brag about how much they love Google because they 'do no evil'. They've even gone as far as to state that they plan on trusting Google until they give them reason to do otherwise. (These comments were always modded up, to boot.) I imagine lots of these people use a GMail account... which they log in with using their browser. So, while they're logged in to GMail, they use Google to browse. The potential here is that they can trace back your searches and tie them to your login. Who needs to log IP addresses when they can identify you that way?
So why does this crack me up? By the time Google does do something 'evil', they've already handed a lot of personal goodies over to Google. Oops...
I do hope I'm wrong, though. I'd like it pointed out if I am. (you see, I like Google as well, and I use Gmail...) I'd feel a lot more comfortable if GMail had stuck to its own domain instead of using mail.google.com.
Re:Before you start Google-bashing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Racism shouldn't be a crime in and of itself -- freedom of speech is something every country should agree on. The same pithy claim google makes that "we have to abide by their laws!!!oneone" doesn't refuse the fact that they are legitimizing an unjust law.
Do i expect all the employees of Orkut to destroy the data and go to prison for it? No. But it still doesn't make handing over the data justified. What's that cliche about "I vas just following orders..."
Re:More Nonsense! (Score:3, Insightful)
According to Google's Press Release [google.com]:
So they are activelly building an R&D center in Brazil, which will be Google's HQ in Latin America. Businesswise, they have a lot to loose by not complying with a cuort order...
Just my R$0,02.
Re:Liberty versus Libertine (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, there are assholes in all groups, but there is a difference between what is happening at orkut and south-park. In orkut we are seeing those that are assholes promoting their hate and organizing mobs. This is not only evil, but it is against the law here. And what happened is that google is being accused of collaborating with the perpetrators if the local branch "google-brasil" do not produce the ips and time-stamp of several users (according to the article 70 or so).
I do not agree that google should give those IPs, I'm not even sure that generic speech (this rules out when people are singled out) should be forbidden. But, those arguments do make me sick, and those people do get out and do throw rocks at people, it is speech now, but soon it may be more, so in the end this is a "minority report" conundrum. If you know that this group will throw rocks at someone, would you allow it?
Re:This is a horrifying precedent (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy does not equal freedom. Freedom is when a society recognizes that some things are none of its business. Democracy is about what to do with everything else.
Re:Before you start Google-bashing... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a friend that paid a U$12,000 fine in Boston for saying "wow, nice" while looking a afro-american girl's breast.
If he said "die stinky niggers!" would it be fredom of speech?
In Brazil some girls would put a smile in their face. Some would not like, but would never take that to court. Even if they don't like, and take to court, they'd never win, because, like her or not, it was kind of a compliment, and there was no intent of obtaining any sex or the like in the situation. So no harassment
But in Boston, the judge didn't think like this.
People all over the world have different views, not about what is freedom, but where my freedom ends and where yours begin.