When pressuring a major corporation to comply with a major government mandate, it’s a good idea to commence communications with said company’s legal department. The sales team is generally clueless about these matters. The Brazilian government couldn’t care less who they talk to at Google, but Google thinks they should try.
Brazil filed suit against Google for failure to comply with court orders seeking the Mountain View, Calif.-based company to unhand information about Orkut criminals.
Orkut, Google’s social networking site, is very popular in Brazil, and recently became the center of a large investigation into child pornography, racism, soccer hooligans, presidential assassinations plots, and drug trafficking. Google agreed to shut down certain areas of the site associated with the illegal activity, and promised to aid in the criminal investigation.
Brazilian officials say that Google has been ignoring court orders to cooperate, and have asked Brazilian courts to fine the company nearly $70 million plus about $94,000 per day until they comply. If Google still refuses, officials are seeking to shut down Google Brazil altogether.
But Google says authorities have been making their demands to Google’s Brazilian office, which is stacked waist-high with salespeople, not lawyers. All the lawyers are in the US, along with the servers that host the Orkut service.
Google has already participated in some investigations, but cannot field requests unless they go through the US legal system first.
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