September 5, 2006

Google is working with the Brazilian government and is complying with a court order to turn over data to Brazil which could help identify Orkut users who could be distributing child pornography pictures and could potentially act as a center for various hate crimes.

Unlike the US Government’s much broader request for search behavior data in 2005, Brazil has requested specific information on criminals and members of groups in the Orkut social search site who are using the system for illegal activities in Brazil and in other countries.

“What they’re asking for is not millions of pages,” said Nicole Wong, Google associate general counsel. “In many cases, it is relatively discrete, small and very narrow.”

Google is going down the right and responsible path with its social network in this instance, working with the authorities to combat child trafficking and crimes against children in Brazil.

The company will be handing over specific information on criminals who are using Orkut for real evil, not world domination evil or tracking of all users’ archives and click behavior evil, but the kidnapping, killing and torture of innnocent children.

The Washington Post reports: "The Brazilian authorities are particularly interested in Internet protocol (IP) addresses with time and date stamps that can help trace a specific user. Registration information Google could provide includes names and email addresses.

It’s also an election year in Brazil and this win will be big for President Lula and his party, as the breaking up of child trafficking syndicates has been a political promise and agenda in Brazil since the eighties when the country took action against false adoption agencies and International organ smuggling.

But what is even more important is that this has become a Win-Win situation for Google as it shows that the company actually cares about the laws, battles and social difficulties of the countries it plans to expand within, especially with the growth of broadband and the $100 Laptop Movement.

In a statement, Google also added that it always has been the intention of the company “to be as cooperative in the investigation and prosecution of crimes as it possibly can, while being careful to balance the interests of its users and the request from the authorities.“

Source: Search Engine Journal