Safernet Brasil

Brazilian authorities call in search giant to discuss crime on social networking site Orkut.
March 10, 2006

Brazilian authorities have summoned Google officials on Friday to discuss controlling crime on the search giant’s social networking site Orkut after a group was arrested last year for allegedly using the online gathering place to sell drugs.

The Public Ministry issued the summons after receiving a complaint from Safernet, a nonprofit group that aims to defend human rights on the Internet, according to a report from Reuters. A spokesperson with Google Brasil confirmed the company had received the summons, but didn’t give additional details, Reuters said.

Social networks have proliferated online and have become an important way for Internet companies to attract user eyeballs, which in turn can help pull in ad dollars. As a result, larger Internet media companies like Google and Yahoo have also jumped into the space.

But in both cases, they’ve had limited success. The winners have been networks like MySpace? .com and Facebook, both of which emerged on the scene without any big brand names backing them.

But in Brazil, it’s a different story. At Google’s recent Analyst Day event, executives were quick to point out that Orkut is very widely used in Brazil (see Google Reassures its Investors). More than 70 percent of its 14 million users are based in the South American country.

The Mountain View, California-based search giant has said in the past that Orkut is also very popular in the Middle East.

Illegal Connections

But whether it’s in Brazil or the Middle East, Orkut has also become a place on the Internet where people on the wrong side of the law often connect. Last July, Brazil police arrested a group selling drugs on Orkut.

More recently, USA Today reported that at least 10 communities on Orkut were devoted to praising Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, or jihads against the United States.

It isn’t really clear why Orkut is the chosen one. “It’s luck. It could have been any social networking site,” said Rick Summer, an analyst with Morningstar. “This happens to be the one they chose.”

Most of the successful social networks have tried to target a niche. MySpace? , for example, has thrived as a destination site for bands and independent music fans.

Orkut didn’t really start out targeting any particular audience group. A Google software engineer, Orkut Buyukkokten, came up with it during the time given to him to work on personal interests—a practice Google encourages among its employees.