Slashdot | Google Denies Data In Brazil Orkut Case
Slashdot | Google Denies Data In Brazil Orkut Case
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.
Furthermore, from the Napa Valley Register Online:
Risking daily fines of $23,000, Google argued, among other things, that the federal civil court did not have the proper jurisdiction. . . . Google has said it is open to data requests from foreign governments as long as they comply with U.S. laws and are issued within the country in which the information is stored. Federal Judge Jose Marcos Lunardelli rejected that reasoning on Aug. 22, saying “all the photographs and messages being investigated were published by Brazilians, through Internet connection in national territory.†. . . At issue is whether information stored on computers in the United States should be subject to Brazilian or U.S. law.
Another example of Google following its mission, “Do no evil.” The “Do no evil” mission is justified as a good business policy more than an ethical mandate. But isn’t privacy in the name of justice enough of a justification? Unfortunately not. It just takes good lawyering to obfuscate what many U.S. citizens think are their rights.