14 DAY TRIAL // The Brazilian version of Google as well as the local flavor of Orkut might be banned in Brazil if the search giant doesn't agree to disclose private information about some users that were identified as pedophiles. The social networking website Orkut is the most visited website in Brazil and, as AccuraCast reports, it hosts approximately 3.000 profiles of pedophiles. The entire case was started after the local government received no less than 100,000 complaints concerning Orkut, most of them coming from organizations fighting for human rights, against drugs or guns, the same source adds.
Google Brazil said that all the private details about the users who accessed the service are stored by the main Mountain View company so it might take a while until this issue is resolved. What's more interesting is that Google fights to improve its privacy and a potential disclose of users' identity would attract an avalanche of criticism from the users all over the world.
"Google's attitude is ensuring the impunity of pedophiles and perpetrators of hate crimes and shows they are only motivated by profits and are ignoring their social responsibility to Brazilian laws and society," prosecutor Sergio Gardenghi Suiama sustained according to AccuraCast.
This is not the first time when Google is required to provide private details about a certain user. It happened again in the past when a user nicknamed EcoTotal uploaded pirated clips on YouTube and Fox started a powerful campaign to arrest the member. The producer of "24" sustained the YouTube users published the clips even before the official release date of the movie so he sent a subpoena to Google to obtain the details about the user.
But this is not always the best decision to settle the case. Yesterday, it was reported that Google's rival Yahoo was sued by some Chinese journalists because the Sunnyvale company provided private information about some users that led to their prosecution and then to years in prison.