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Google to Give Data To Brazilian Court
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Sep 05, 2006 09:22 AM
from the not-much-they-could-do dept.
from the not-much-they-could-do dept.
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."
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mikesd81 writes, "The AP reports that Google filed a motion in response to a Brazilian judge's deadline to turn over information on users of the company's social networking service Orkut. An earlier AP story gives the background: 'On Aug. 22, Federal Judge Jose Marcos Lunardelli gave Google's Brazilian affiliate until Sept. 28 to release information needed to identify individuals accused of using Orkut to spread child pornography and engage in hate speech against blacks, Jews and homosexuals. Google claims that its Brazilian affiliate cannot provide the information because all the data about Orkut users is stored outside Brazil at the company's U.S.-based headquarters. Google maintains that it is open to requests for information from foreign governments as long as the requests comply with U.S. laws and that they are issued within the country where the information is stored.'" Eight million
Brazilians, about a quarter of the country's Internet-using population, are members of Orkut.
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Before you start Google-bashing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Before you start Google-bashing... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, this is ignoring the fact that "promoting hate" should not be a crime in the country Google hails from.
Parent
Re:Before you start Google-bashing... (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, there are anti-discrimination laws in Brasil since the nineties, and racism (bigotry, in general) is a federal crime there. But, if I'm not wrong (IANAL), there is a difference in our law between "I hate " and "I hate you John Doe, you fucking ". The former counts as free speech, the latter doesn't. I may be wrong, I don't know.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Investigating conspiracy-to-commit-murder via Orkut would not generate nearly the same amount of news. Don't places in the US (myspace, etc) roll over with this information all the time?
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..."
Parent
Yes, Round Up the Homophobes & Racists! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You hate coins [wikipedia.org]?
Maybe they should stop warehousing data (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Same goes for GMail.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Parent
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.
Liberty versus Libertine (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh don't even start that bullshit about majorities versus minorities. The minorities are just as bad as the majorities. I've met just as many gays that instantly assume I'm going to want to stone them to death because I'm technically a fundamentalist, as I have met pseudo-Christians who would probably join a mob to stone them. I'm an asshole, they're an asshole. EVERYONE'S AN ASSHOLE on these issues at some point!
You know what breeds hate and resentment? Empowering people to turn subjective feelings into a legal weapon. You instantly empower a hate group the moment you ban it. I bet the KKK would grow 50-100% every year if it were outlawed. It's just a way for societies to brush their issues under the national carpet and pretend that all is well.
Well guess what?! It isn't! All manner of bigotry is rampant around the world and the force of law is not going to change hearts. Law has been used to smooth these things over time and again in the past and it **always** fails. The only thing that changes bigotry into love is a spiritual rebirth and that is something that cannot be legislated.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, there are assholes in all groups, but there is a difference between what is happening
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The literal truth of whichversion of the Bible, of which translation [religioustolerance.org]? In many cases, originals are lost, and all we can go by are later translations, which may be faithful to the original, or which might not be. And if original texts do turn up at a later date, translations are often not corrected out of fear of shocking the readership with a more accurate (but unexpected) rendering. And that's even without counting deliberate forgeries.
In other
Thorn in my flesh (Score:3, Interesting)
So Paul knows what the "arsenokoite" term means. But does he also know what hypokrytos [beliefnet.com] means? (sorry for the Greek spelling, this is not my first language).
And how does Ephesians 5:29 rhyme with 2 Corinthians 12:7 ? Even if we disagree about what that mysterious "thorn" actually is, there seems to be some contradiction between both verses, unless Paul considers himself to be nobody.
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:This is a horrifying precedent (Score:5, Informative)
By "compelled to produce," the article is talking about Google obeying a court order. If a court has jurisdiction over a company, it doesn't matter where the information is -- the company has to obey that order or face the consequences (or try to convince the court the order is invalid somehow).
The article summary is horribly misleading (even more so than normal): this is nothing like Google refusing to give the US government access to search info. There was no court order to do so (think subpoena), and so Google told them to take a hike. IIRC, even at that time Google specifically stated that if there had been a lawful court order, it would have complied.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:This is a horrifying precedent (Score:5, Informative)
So your example is easy to deal with. While a Brazilian court may or may not under Brazilian law have subject matter jurisdiction over the specific records on your hard drive, if you go to Brazil with that laptop then all bets are off and jurisdiction is established.
Want to hear the real rub? If you are in an airplane flying over a particular country (or even state in the USA) then they have personal jurisdiction over you.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, no, Google cannot just ignore the laws of countries in which it
Re:Got news for ya - election year indeed (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, let us remember that it's a presidential election year in Brazil, and anything goes, especially for companies interested in little advantages. Plus, Google was being scalded alive by the local media. And, like I heard once: "a polemical headline exists as a bargain for a even more polemical request".
Parent
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)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
According to Google's Press Release [google.com]: