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Google to Give Data To Brazilian Court
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."
Not only that, but it appears in this case they are asking for data concerning "person X", which they apparently have the equivalent of probable cause to obtain.
Of course, this is ignoring the fact that "promoting hate" should not be a crime in the country Google hails from.
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.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
True, there is a probable cause, and it is a little bit worse than "promoting hate", but "conspiring to commit a crime". One (of the many) examples that comes to my head is a group of neo-nazi that harassed a particular user (a black young boy) not only online (messaging him via the site, and creating a "community" with a "let's kill him" theme), but using the info they gathered about him on Orkut to harass him on his own homeplace.
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.
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.