Google Under Fire Over a Controversial Site

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119273558149563775.html?mod=todays_us_page_o
ne
 

Google Under Fire Over a Controversial Site

Racist Speech, Porn
Stir Battle in Brazil;
A 'Pandora's Box'
By ANTONIO REGALADO and KEVIN J. DELANEY
October 19, 2007; Page A1


SÃO PAULO, Brazil -- Google
<http://online.wsj.com/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=goog>  Inc. makes
billions marrying advertising to the Web. Just yesterday, it reported yet
another surge in revenue and profit.

But here in Brazil, the Internet powerhouse is embroiled in an embarrassing
episode over its efforts to profit from social networking, one of the
fastest-growing activities online.

Google has gotten in hot water over its Web site Orkut, which like other
social-networking sites allows people to swap information and create
personal Web pages. While many Americans have never heard of it, Orkut is a
powerhouse overseas, with more than half its 25 million monthly visitors in
Brazil. By some measures, it ranks among the top 10 sites on the Web in
popularity, alongside other heavily used social-networking sites such as
News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook Inc. (See
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119264507920362231.html?mod=Leader-US>
related article.)

A central challenge for all these companies is how to turn the usage into
cash. All of the big players are looking to advertisers to generate revenue.
For most of its history Orkut was ad-free.

Then, when Google tried putting ads on the site, it ran into trouble.
Critics in Brazil released a report showing advertisements on Orkut
alongside pictures of naked children and abused animals. Google immediately
suspended the ads, but the Mountain View, Calif., company is still grappling
with the fallout from critics' Orkut campaign.

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.

...

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