Google’s International Headache: Orkut

Google Under Fire Over a Controversial Site from the Wall Street Journal has an outstanding summary of all the controversy, politics, legalities and moral issues Google has run into due to their Brazilian favored social networking site, Orkut.

The article covers how Google had to pull the ads on Orkut back in August due to them showing up next to “pictures of naked children and abused animals.” From the article:

The head of Google’s Brazilian operation is facing criminal contempt charges for refusing to turn Orkut users’ data over to police. And next month there is a hearing in a case brought by a São Paulo prosecutor threatening daily fines of $100,000 or the shuttering of Google’s Brazil office. “We have won,” says Thiago Tavares Nunes de Oliveira, a 28-year-old Brazilian law professor who wrote the graphic report and has crisscrossed Brazil making the case that Google allowed Orkut to become a redoubt of criminal activity, including child pornography and racist speech.

I have been covering the issues Google has been having with Orkut for years now. Let me bullet point all my stories:

• Brazil Says Google Still Not Cooperating Over Illegal Orkut Activities, Aug. 23, 2007
• Google Appeals Federal Judge’s Orkut Ruling, October 30, 2006
• Google Not To Deliver Orkut Data To Brazil Authorities, September 28, 2006
• Google Says They Will Give Brazil Orkut Data, September 4, 2006
• Google Has 15 Days To Provide Data To Brazil Or Be Fined $23,000 Per Day, September 1, 2006
• Google Works With Brazil To Shut Down Orkut Communities, May 25, 2006
• Brazil To Close Google Brazil’s Offices Over Orkut Issues?, August 22, 2006
• Orkut Causing Trouble In Brazil Again, Aug. 16, 2006
• Drug Pushers Using Orkut Arrested In Brazil, Jul. 21, 2005
• Google Works With Brazil To Shut Down Orkut Communities, May. 25, 2006
• Google Faces Criminal Charges For Child Porn & Racial Material, May. 18, 2006
• Google & Brazil Fight Over Orkut User Data Rights, May. 3, 2006
• Brazil Asks Google To Help Orkut To Stop Organizing Organized Crime, Mar. 10, 2006
• Al-Qaeda Likes Orkut, Mar. 9, 2006