Brazil Threatens To Fine Google

September 6th, 2006: Brazilian authorities have given the search giant Google 15 days to hand over user information from its online community Orkut or face a US$61 million fine, and daily fines of $23,000.

The Brazilian government says that Orkut has been hosting pages supporting unlawful activities such as pages for neo-Nazis. Google has so far failed to deliver on a promise to shut down unlawful pages and hand over related user data.

Google Brazil says that it has already provided all the data it can, and further information is stored on US servers. Because of this, Google has reportedly said that requests by Brazilian authorities for further information should be made to Google headquarters in the US, giving it a distinct advantage to protect its data thanks to its win against the US Department of Justice earlier this year.

The Justice Department requested Google’s entire search index for a two month period. This amounts to billions of search requests, and Google stood its ground refusing to hand over its data while other search companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft capitulated.

Whether it wins or not, however, Google says it is complying with the Brazilian government’s request, an decision that flies in the face of its refusal to hand over search data to the US Justice Department.

Google says that the situation is quite different this time as it has been asked to provide only small amounts of information by comparison. The information however, will be more detailed and could include IP addresses, time and date stamps and user registration information such as email addresses and names.

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