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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."
...note that this is about Orkut, not search results.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Show the world that Big Brother, Fascism and Censorship know no Left/Right wing ideology!
Google's habit of logging EVERYTHING is starting to get a bit scary. EVERYTHING that a person has EVER done with ANY of Google's services has been warehoused and is subject to subpoena.
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
So, no, Google cannot just ignore the laws of countries in which it does business if it doesn't like what they say.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
"Don't be Evil" was supposed to be the motto of the company. When they stood up to the Bush administration in court and defended it's user searches, I applauded them. Not because they were defending the search data, not because they were defending the people that made the searches, but rather because they were defending the end users *right* to make the search in the first place. Yet, in past months, my view of Google has started to change. Headlines like the one in which their CEO defended their policy of storing search terms (presumably for data mining operations and targeted marketing), and then this event in which they are going to turn over the data to a foreign government. I'm not defending the bad guys in any way here, but what I am saying is that there is going to come a day in the not so distant future in which the searches that you did ten years ago can be brought into question. Who knows? Maybe at somepoint some whacked law maker will make a twinkie illegal, and those searches that you made so that you could distill your own will be akin to taking a walk on the Dark Side. Philip Zimmermann said it best: "If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."
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.
I'd love to see them get re-elected after pulling that little stunt.
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".
I was thinking about this general issue last night and realized the great irony that Brazil and "enlightened" Europe would have to outlaw a lot of South Park episodes because they would offend the sensibilities of some group, typically homosexuals. I'm entirely unimpressed with these countries and their "progressiveness" that says that throwing around human sexuality is ok, but saying offensive things is not.
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.
"That way the people of Brazil would clearly know what the government is doing"
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)
You hate coins?
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
At least according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil#Government_and _Politics, Brazil is a democracy. This is a choice the people of Brazil made about how they choose to run their society, so not quite the same as the situation in China where the political system raises questions--at least in my mind--about how more than a small set of the population feels about it.
I wouldn't be the least surprised to find out that, if a data cable crosses through a country's territory, that country can follow its own laws on whether or not it can tap the cable, unless its signed a treaty to the contrary. By analogy, it should also be able to follow its own laws on whether to tap the contents of disks located within its jurisdiction. If true, Europeans, for example, may wish to compare U.S. to European privacy laws and think about where the companies they use store their data.
There is de facto legitimization of hacking in some countries, just as there's de facto legitimization of other activities that neighboring countries might consider crimes or civilly punishable activities. For example, a U.S. company that exceeds the Kyoto protocol's emission caps is not liable, nor can the U.S. apply its laws regarding nuclear proliferation to A. Q. Kahn, despite the fact that both activities affect neighboring countries. Whether the activity is punishable in the neighbor country depends on whether there are extradition treaties, "special rendition"-type activities, and the vagaries of international law.
As for the issue some other posters have raised of Google logging all this stuff, one answer is to use one of Google's competitors, avoid Gmail (or any other web-based mail, for that matter), and use anonymizer services when running searches.
But google is not it. Seriously, why would anybody put any corporation up on a pedestal?
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.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
And what, may I ask, constitutes a inferior legal system. Sure there are lots of things that I consider inferior in the US legal system, and I am sure that some of those points are what you would consider superior. People think diferent, even if you consider a single country people will disagree on what is fair and what is not.
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.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
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.
According to Google's Press Release:
So they are activelly building an R&D center in Brazil, which will be Google's HQ in Latin America. Businesswise, they have a lot to loose by not complying with a cuort order...
Just my R$0,02.
Uncopyrightable: The longest word you can write without repeating a letter.
This is a choice the people of Brazil made about how they choose to run their society
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.
So Paul knows what the "arsenokoite" term means. But does he also know what hypokrytos 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.