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Google Brazil Exec "Detained" For Refusing YouTube Takedown Order
h00manist writes that, as promised, "The police executed an order to detain Google's top executive in Brazil (Original in Portuguese), Fábio José Silva Coelho. Google refused an order to remove a YouTube video which accused a mayoral candidate of several crimes. Police say he will be released today; Brazilian law for the case allows for a one-year max sentence. Streisand Effect, anyone?"
It doesn't matter where the datacenter is located (good luck trying to enforce your rigths to your information based on that)
What it does matter, is that google is incorporated (twice apparently) in Brazil
Google Belo Horizonte
Google Brasil Internet LTDA
Av. Bias Fortes
n 382 6th floor, Lourdes
Belo Horizonte
30170-010
Brazil
Phone: +55-31-2128-6800
Fax: +55-31-2128-6801
Google São Paulo
Google Brasil Internet Limitada
Av. Brigadeiro Faria Lima
n 3900 5th floor, Itaim
São Paulo, 04538-132
Brasil
Teléfono: +55-11-3797-1000
Fax: +55-11-3797-1001
http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/locations/
I'm the guy who posted comments before yours.
Google complies with brazilian court orders by the thousands every year, and it should be no news. Google complies with court orders from every country it has a headquarter.
Mr. Fabio, a brazilian citizen, Google employee and top executive, may not be able to obey the order by himself, but he's capable to command another Google employee to do so. So ultimately he is the main responsible person.
I don't know how Google Brazil is run, but every company around the world with 10+ employees needs an hierarquical structure where someone at the top delegates to his tenants and it goes down under to the cleaning guy. And people make mistakes, get dismissed and so on. Someone messed up and will have to take the heat. And Mr. Fabio wasn't imprisioned, he just had to go to a police department to answer some questions and to be made aware of the problem and act upon.
If an USA judge issued a court order the police must comply, be the target BillG, the elusive Embraer secretary or whoever. If the secretary is an USA citizen, that's it, if not the diplomacy will take place, as every UN member would expect to act.
Burning flags is not a brazilian national sport. We're pretty orderly (fanfare to the common man playing in the backgound) and working people.
There are no double standards here. Brazil respects international laws pretty much as everyone else. Please remember Flight 1907, when USA pilots downed a Boeing full of brazilian citizens just because some USA senator didn't want to be tracked in brazilian airspace by brazilian airspace authorities. Nobody burned USA flags, the pilots were repatriated to USA and propably nothing wrong happened to them, despite reaping more than one hundred brazilian souls. Because we respect the law.
Brazilian judges aren't pluripotent tyrants in constant tantrum spree. They're accountable and overviewed by the legal system, that can punish the judge and overrule him/her if appropriate, just as every really civilized western country with representatives elected by the people.
Sorry, but nothing to see here. Move along.