14 DAY TRIAL // Google has always said that users' privacy is extremely important and its efforts to protect it were applauded even by international authorities. However, the Mountain View-based company has just handed over private information about some users to the Brazilian authorities, as part of an investigation supposed to stop pedophilia in the country. A few weeks ago, Google was rumored to be asked by the Brazilian government to disclose details about some of the Orkut Brazilian members, but the search company initially rejected it pointing to the privacy of its users.
Orkut is Google's social network, quite popular in Brazil and India but less attractive in the rest of the world where Facebook and MySpace lead the way. It was said that Orkut had approximately 120 million users and, according to Wikipedia, 67.5 percent of its traffic comes from Brazil.
Because it is a social network, and social networks have always encountered problems with pedophiles, Orkut caught the attention of the Brazilian authorities which demanded private information of no less than 3,261 registered members who are suspected of pedophilia. According to Xinhua, the provided information includes pictures and photo albums published on Orkut.
As mentioned, Google initially rejected the demand and refused to provide the secret details. "Over the past two years, there have been 50,000 pedophilia reports. Google, arguing that it was a question of privacy, especially because the data was hosted in California, refused to release it," Senator Demostenes Torres told Xinhua.
However, Google has changed its attitude and is now working with the local authorities to eradicate the phenomenon but it's not clear yet whether the prosecutors plan to require even more details from the Mountain View-based company anytime in the future.