The deadline given Google by the Brazilian Justice to turn in data on their Orkut users in Brazil was supposed to end this Friday, September 15, but the American Internet search company was granted 15 more days to comply with the demand.
The reason presented by Brazil’s federal court was that some changes that occurred during the legal proceedings may have hurt Google’s right of defense.
Google has been ordered by federal judge José Marcos Lunardelli from the São Paulo 17th Court to give out data that would allow Brazilian authorities to go after people who used the social networking site Orkut to practice crimes like spreading child pornography and promoting pedophilia and racism.
After Google received the previous judicial order compelling it to give names, addresses, emails and IPs, Brazil’s Public Ministry requested that the order be extended to include other services offered by Google besides it Orkut site.
Although this last request was denied by Lunardelli’s substitute, judge Paulo Cezar Neves Júnior, the new judge extended the time granted Google. Cezar Neves argued that the American company was jeopardized in its defense since the lawsuit papers stayed in possession of the Public Ministry from September 4 to September 11.
The Brazilian Justice also denied the request made by Google’s office in Brazil to appoint a specialist who would attest that Google in Brazil is not linked to its American parent company Google Inc., who owns Orkut. The request had been made on August 21.
According to Google’s lawyer in Brazil, Durval Noronha Goyos Jr., the Brazilian federal prosecutor filed 48 requests asking for Orkut users’ data to be handed to Brazilian authorities.
As he has been repeating since the beginning of the legal battle with Brazil, Noronha once again insisted that the problem is the lawsuits are being sent to Google Brasil, which is only an advertising branch of Google, instead of Google, Inc, the company headquarters in the US, where all the servers are located.
Noronha says that Google has already complied with 30 orders that were sent to its headquarters and is just waiting for the 18 remaining requests so it can hand over the data.
