Google’s Brazilian subsidiary on Wednesday handed over information on more than 3,000 of its users to a Brazilian senate panel investigating pedophilia.
Felix Ximenes, Google’s communications director, delivered a set of DVDs containing information on 3,261 users of the company’s popular Orkut social-networking service for an investigation into the spread of child pornography on the site.
“With the information we have received, we will be able to strike a major blow against the pedophile network acting in the country,” Senator Demostenes Torres said.
The information contained in the Orkut albums will be analyzed by prosecutors and federal police, Torres said.
Google will meanwhile use filters to prevent the spread of child pornography on Orkut, Ximenes told reporters.
Federal prosecutors last August said Google failed to comply with requests to provide information about users who allegedly spread child pornography and hate speech against black people, Jews and homosexuals on Orkut.
Google eliminated the users from Orkut groups and until now has refused to release information about them to authorities, arguing it was bound by US laws guaranteeing freedom of speech.
A Google spokesperson directed questions about why the company changed its position to the legal department, which couldn’t be reached for comment late on Wednesday.
“Google Brasil not only believes it is its obligation to collaborate with Brazilian authorities, but it has already been doing so spontaneously and proactively since the first signs of problems with Orkut were discovered about two years ago,” Latin America spokesman Alberto Arebalos wrote in an e-mail.
About 55 percent of the 60 million-plus Orkut users worldwide are Brazilian.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
RSS