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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?"
If your company policy requires you to break local laws, you have two options:
1) break local laws, and go to a local jail.
2) quit your job.
There are, of course, ways of changing the laws and such...but until such time as those happen, the two above options are basically your only options.
change the law or don't operate there.
Exactly right. It would be nice if companies like Google would grow some balls and just say "OK. Fuck you. We're closing all our operations in your country".
Why exactly does Google need an office in Brazil anyway?. I've heard of this thing called The Internet that lets you communicate and do business will people all over the world without having to actually be in their country.
It's not like the Brazilian court is trying to hide something with this order that now it will be 10x public, you know?
I don't like most of limitations to free speech, but you know, I also don't like transnationals corporations acting like they are above the law of the (several) countries they operate.
A court order in Brazil gave an order, and google was in contempt, don't like it? change the law or don't operate there.
Hints:
Google works on the internet. The internet works everywhere (Except Iran, apparently).
Google has no datacenters in Brazil.
So Brazil was trying to enforce ITS laws in OTHER countries, something everyone here is quick to condem when the US does it.
Failing to force the US to change its laws, Brazil takes hostages.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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/
That's not how you do business and this is not a reason for not operating in some country. They earn money in Brazil and they would just lose that revenue by skipping a large economy just because of some silly youtube video. Having a local office helps you receive payments and is a major deal breaker expecially when dealing with corporate customers.
If, during american elections, people posted videos saying Obama is a rapist and favors abortion I'm sure it would be removed.
Really, i'm completely against any kind of censorship and when i read about this the first time i tough it was something abusive. But after looking at some of the videos... they are just a bunch of lies about the guy, with fake "documents" that doesn't exist showing things he didn't do it. Here in Brazil there's a law that says something like this: if you accuse some candidate about anything during election you have do identify yourself. That's to protect people against things like this. Google did not comply with the law, they were asked to remove and done nothing, now they say excuses like they aren't responsible about user content. When it' s major record company thay don't even ask.. google has their legs open to then. Ridiculous position from a company that i have a lot of respect, hope they apologize their attitude.
They don't have a datacenter but they do have a local office and Google is a registred company in Brazil so they either (a) comply with local laws or (b) close the company local office. It really is that simple.
A court order in Brazil gave an order, and google was in contempt, don't like it? change the law or don't operate there.
This logic doesn't work. "There" is globally, across the world, in over 140 countries. A ton of countries have laws that are in direct contradiction with one another. No, this doesn't mean that global companies should tailor their online presense to each and every country individually. I am free to publish a funny Mohammed cartoon here in Finland and I don't have to give 2 shits about what some jackass in Pakistan or Iran or wherever thinks about it or whatever their laws say about publishing such material or whatever their courts decide to "order" me to do. He is free to not access said cartoon if it offends him.
Uh, no it wouldn't. this sort of stuff happens all the time. Freedom of Speech actually does mean something here.
I can't resist to reply to you again, as it seems you are making the same point over again.
Yes, if there is a law that sets price caps locally on Texas, or at Federal level, Gazprom USA would be regulated for the oil it sells there. What it shouldn't be regulated if for the oil Gazprom Russia sells to China.
This unregulated international corporatism you are advocating for is something bad for all the citizens in the world.
If the US government passes a law that sets price caps, then Gasprom would have to either obey them, or leave the US. What is so strange about that.
And I don't see any kind of a conflict with the statement about Internet not being under the control of any one government. If a government wants to control the Internet inside it's own borders it can certainly try.
Google closed down their China office because of government harassment, what makes you think that they wouldn't do it in Brazil?
If Google disobeys brazilian laws, Brazil will want Google to take its marbles an get the fsck outta here, of course.
Who must rule Brazil is the elected Brazilian representatives and not a foreign corporation. I believe USA has its own dose of transantional mega corporations messing with USA politics and it's not good for the USA.
We'll not sell out Amazonia to avoid upsetting Bayer.
Wanna play in our sandbox? You have to play by our rules, the same way we have to comply if we want to play in yours.
Maybe not a datacenter, but here on NET Virtua in Rio de Janeiro, YouTube videos are served from what appears to be a cache colocated at my ISP:
# tcptraceroute o-o---preferred---sn-oxunxg8pjvn-bpbe---v17---lscache7.c.youtube.com
Selected device eth0, address 192.168.1.5, port 46521 for outgoing packets
Tracing the path to o-o---preferred---sn-oxunxg8pjvn-bpbe---v17---lscache7.c.youtube.com (201.17.31.76) on TCP port 80 (http), 30 hops max
1 192.168.1.1 1.308 ms 1.173 ms 1.091 ms
2 * * *
3 201.17.0.4 10.131 ms 10.221 ms 10.847 ms
4 192.168.248.11 8.933 ms 13.197 ms 10.367 ms
5 10.10.10.2 18.908 ms 8.914 ms 8.657 ms
6 192.168.248.4 8.981 ms 10.196 ms 9.387 ms
7 c9111f4c.virtua.com.br (201.17.31.76) [open] 9.948 ms 9.289 ms 21.583 ms
Google is known to comply with local law and not display video's that are in violation of several nations laws, when requested to do so by the local authorities. After Thailand blocked youtube, they removed any video that could be insulting to Thailands king Bhumibol, to give an example. Similar actions to remove or at least block content have been taken in several countries after legal and sometimes economical pressure from the country. I'm sure that a next step from Brazil would be to name Google a criminal organization and block all their services for the entire country. It may not be the very next step, but eventually it will get to that point.
The most likely thing that will happens next is that Google will then comply because they can't afford to loose the business if it gets to that. Don't be evil, unless you are losing too much money. My analysiss of Google leaving China is that it wasn't about censorship, they complied to that for quite a while, but about too much effort for the money they were allowed to make by the Chinese government. They were being forced to censor *and* squeezed for the amount of cash they were allowed to pull out of the Chinese economy. The latter made applying the censorship just too much work to be profitable enough.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Some considerations:
First of all, Google (the branch) is incorporated in Brazil, so by law it is a Brazilian company and has to follow Brazilian laws. This is way different than claiming jurisdiction because of nothing more than a top level domain, without any other kind of presence, like the US does. Google is a legal company in Brazil, with local offices, executives, employees and engineers and offers products in Brazil, in Portuguese, using a .com.br domain, to Brazilian customers. Users accept EULAs in Portuguese, citing Brazilian law, and the other party is the Brazilian office. Comparing this to enforcing jurisdiction abroad is a joke and totally stupid.
Second of all, the law is ridiculous and it is from decades ago, pre-Internet and made to control the message since politicians or their close allies own most of TV and paper media in Brazil. This kind of law makes no sense in a world with Internet and user-generated content.
But, having said that, I also think that a company has to comply with the laws and especially with a court order. (They can dispute in court if they don't like it, but they cannot pick and choose what to comply.) And the appropriate response for not following the laws or for contempt is arresting the top executive (not a sales droid like some other posts imply) of said company. I just wish we were as severe to punish misdeeds from companies as severely as when we are trying to enforce a ridiculous and arcane law from the 50-60s.
Remember, the executive is not being punished for the video, which is sadly illegal under the current laws (the author if found is liable for defamation, libel and breaking the electoral law). The top executive is being held responsible for his company not removing the video (blocking it until after the election was also an acceptable solution mentioned in the court order) when requested by a lawful court order and given one week to comply.