Pedro Innecco

I must say that I am a big fan of Google products. Not only Google is my search engine of choice, but I love their line of online services. I am a heavy user of Google Applications which I use for two of custom domains including Google mail, docs, sites and calendar. Plus I am also looking forward to create my own custom applications for content aggregation and interoperability with social networking sites. However as much as I love their applications and services, I despite Google’s position on matters of social responsibility.

About four years ago, a relative of mine engaged in a public inflamed argument with Brazilian skinheads in a discussion forum in Orkurt (which is Google’s social networking portal, similar to Facebook). The argument went out of hand, and one of those skinheads found some pictures of my relative’s daughter (who was about 8 years at the time) and published some Photoshop collages of his girl in pornographic scenes. In Brazil (and I would guess in any civilised country, really) this is a serious offense depicted in the penal code, which can led to some serious jail terms.

The girl’s father attempted to contact Orkut’s support service, but he was informed that “Orkut wasn’t responsible for the content posted by their users”. After arguing with Orkut’s support for about three days, he asked for my help. I tried to contact Google about the incident but there was contact information to be found. No phone numbers, no emails – there was simply no way for end users to contact Google for support. I then tried to use the white pages, and found out Google’s main telephone number in the USA. As I explained the problem we’re having, I got a similar answer as my relative did: “Google wasn’t responsible for the content posted by their users”. The whole experience was as if Google was completely unaccountable to anything that happens on their systems, and customers attempting to talk to anyone at Google would be treated in a very patronising and condescending manner which such petulance, as if they were some sort of telemarketing reps attempting to sell magazine subscriptions to the White House.

Since Google was getting prepared to enter in the Brazilian market at the time, I decided to push a little harder. I told them that they better start playing ball and respect the laws and constitutions of the countries they are planning to operate on, or else they would start with the wrong foot. The lady on the other side of the phone then told me to call another number, and quote the password “Pizza” when I call – which I did, but never got a proper call back.

The case of my relative’s daughter wasn’t an isolated case in Orkut. The whole incident started because of some racist users creating hate groups. There were also cases of frauds and all sorts of scams running, and even users selling CLASS A drugs through the system – and yet Google continued to wash their hands. This whole Pontius Pilatus attitude really got into my nerves. So when Google finally got into Brazil, they got to feel the heat. The government demanded Google to hand over details of any users under suspect of committing criminal acts, and subpoenas started to be fired at Google’s backend followed by threats of “our way or the highway” by the Brazilian Supreme Court’ – It was music to my ears. Then Google finally decided to play ball, which was often followed by some nice sugar-coated PR on how they do their best to follow the local regulations.

I thought this whole experience would make Google start to realise their liabilities within the spectrum of corporate social responsibility… Well shame on me. Google’s YouTube is a good example on how Google will fight to the last minute for their right of I can’t be bovvered (sic). No matter how much I flagged inappropriate videos of Brazilian criminal factions – Google wouldn’t move a finger to remove such videos. Some of those videos were extremely graphic promoting drug trafficking, violence towards law enforcement agencies (including the picture of a police officer whose head was blown wide open by a gunshot), apology to illegal weapons and gang warfare (including the picture of murdered members of rival criminal factions, with decapitated heads and burned bodies sodomised with wooden broomsticks).

Then yesterday Google releases some nifty piece of PR on how YouTube is getting proactive against terrorism clips. How nice of them!? Well the small print is that Google had USA’s senator Lieberman on their neck demanding the removal of terrorist-related videos. But still, how nice of them…