Group 3 Case Study 1
Google’s Orkut in Brazil: What’s So Social about it?

1. How doe social networking sites work? What has contributed to their immense popularity?

Social Networking sites are web-based services that require the user to register first in order to become a member. In order to complete the registration process, the user needs to fill out their basic demographic information and interest such as: name, age, sex, location, hobbies, favorite books, TV shows, etc. Most social networks allow the user to upload their photos, videos, music and constantly changing their profile information or picture. The most important purpose of social networks is the ability to keep in touch with people you care about. Nowadays, the visits to Social Networking sites are part of everyone’s daily task. In the past few years, social networks have become very popular and a phenomenon around the world due to the increase number of visitors. The immense popularity is due to the ability to communicate and get connected with families and friends from a different country at no cost. Social networks are easy to register, navigate, and it is available to everyone 24 hours, 7 days a week. The most popular and visited social sites are Facebook, Twitter, Hi5, and My Space. People who enjoyed these social sites spend a lot of their time searching, meeting new people and keeping in touch with old friends; this makes these social websites to become more popular every day.

2. Why was Orkut so successful in Brazil? What caused problems later?
Orkut came to Brazil at a period where blogs and photologs had proved hugely successful. Brazilians were passionate about the Internet and all the social media applications that it made possible. Orkut was based on people joining different communities within the site by becoming members. This was another factor that made the site popular because Brazilians were known to be an incredibly community oriented culture and tended to associate themselves with groups within society, such as Evangelical Christians, Macumberos, and Sambistas. Analysts accredited one aspect of Orkut’s success in Brazil to the ease of its pronunciation in Portuguese. It sounded a lot like Yakult, a Japanese yogurt drink popular with Brazilian children. Moreover, its color scheme was the same as the Brazilian Football World Cup Team. An Orkut user made a song called I’m going to delete you from my Orkut that quickly went viral, further illustrating how embedded Orkut had become in the Brazilian culture. Although Google specified the minimum age limit as 18, most users of social networks were below that age. Almost 1.3 million Internet users in Brazil were children or adolescents who would find online access from home.
In September 2004, news first started appearing that human rights violations were occurring on the Orkut site. Due to the fact that Orkut was based upon different communities within society, it not only allowed beneficial/society enriching groups to join, but also allowed anti-socials, Neo-Nazis, organized gangs, and pedophile groups to proliferate online. In 2005, a gang of drug dealers were arrested by Brazilian police for using Orkut to sell Ecstasy and marijuana. In 2005, there was news that large-scale distribution of pornographic images involving children and adolescents was occurring over the site. Accounts against Orkut kept increasing, reaching 1,582 on the NGO site, SaferNet, by December 2005. Another issue that later arose was that Google’s ad system could not tell the difference between a site dedicated to pedophilia and one with ordinary content. So many times ads on Orkut would appear alongside pictures of naked children and abused animals. Problems escalated even more when Google refused to give over data of the criminals online. The laws in Brazil permitted prosecution for hate speeches and Brazilian law did not offer Internet companies immunity for defamation-related claims. Google’s legal director Nicole Wong responded by threatening to block the access of Brazilians to Orkut, based on the allegation that they were using the service improperly. The main cause of the problem was that Google had not spent enough resources to understand the culture and country in which it operated. If it had done so, it would have recognized the vast amount of crime present in Brazil due to economic inequality. The company would have further understood that this could pose a threat on the online usage of the Orkut site in Brazil, and would have placed more regulations on how Orkut groups were created on the site and who could access them. As Hohagen stated, “ We would do it differently today. The product grew faster than the support. That is a fact.”

3. Why did Google refuse to hand over Orkut user data? How should Internet companies and particularly those with social networking sites decide whether or not to share user information with the legal authorities?
Though Google’s general director in Brazil, Alexandre Hohagen, was facing charges for refusing to hand over Orkut user data to Brazilian police; he had good reason in doing so. Google has been trying to find what’s best in combining the interest of their users, as well as advertisers and authorities by still maintaining growth in revenues. Despite the lawsuits against Google, “a civil one for loss of representativeness and compensation for collective moral damages; and a criminal one for protecting criminals and refusing to comply,” they refused to hand over Orkut user data because it was stored in servers in the U.S. and were not subjected to Brazilian law. Also U.S. laws protect users’ private date and Google could not release such information without the user’s consent only if forced to do so by a U.S. judge.
Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have already initiated ways into protecting users from inappropriate pictures or solicitations; giving their users the ability to mark pornography or harassment as improper or even block users. Given with this Facebook even wouldn’t allow users to sign up unless they were at least 13 years of age and also made promises to users that their complaints would be answered within 24 hours. In addition, MySpace ensured that every uploaded picture will be monitored by staff at least once. These programs, in turn, cost social networking sites millions in dollars just to protect and defend their users from pornography as well as harassment. With all these programs into play, social networking sites and Internet companies should carry out a direct like to authorities. Once a piece of media, pornography, or a malicious user is flagged and customer service is alerted; workers must decide whether or not this flagged post is at all worthy of being brought to the attention to the legal authorities. Only then would it be appropriate for a user’s information to be brought forward. Granted this will not be easy since according to the text “… out of every group of 10 hackers worldwide, 8 were probably from Brazil, and almost two-thirds of all pedophilia pages on the Internet originated in Brazil.” International cooperation may be needed, but it should be done. For instance, in text it says that in 2005 the Brazilian Association of Internet Service Providers (BAISP) signed an agreement to assist “investigations in child pornography, racism, and hate mongering”. In addition Internet providers to release user information if/when requested by authorities or “judiciary”.