Safernet Brasil

Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc.'s Brazilian unit was sued by the country's public attorney for allegedly failing to comply with court orders to provide data on users of Orkut, the most-used community site in the Latin American country.

The Brazilian Public Attorney's Office filed the lawsuit yesterday in a federal court requesting that Google Brasil Internet Ltda. turn over information about users who distribute pornographic and racist materials on Orkut, which has more than 20 million users in the country.

Lawyers are asking the court to fine Google 130 million reais ($60.9 million) in addition to fines worth 200,000 reais a day until the company provides the data. The suit also asks the court to shut Google Brasil down if it refuses to turn over the information, the Public Attorney's Office said on its Web site.

``Information on the creators of these profiles and criminal communities is necessary in order to identify Brazilian users of the Google service who are distributing shocking images of child pornography and hate messages against blacks, Jews, inhabitants of Brazil's northeast and homosexuals,'' the Public Attorney's Office said in a statement on its Web site.

Increased Pressure

Google, the world's most-used search engine, and News Corp. face growing pressure from law enforcement over the use of their services for some explicit content and the risk of exposure of sexual predators to teenagers and children who post profiles and diaries on MySpace.com in the U.S. and Orkut in Brazil.

The lawsuit comes after lawyers and Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, failed to reach an agreement on how to provide data on users. The Public Attorney's Office said Google's Brazilian unit hasn't complied with 38 court orders to provide information on Orkut users.

A Google spokesman in Sao Paulo didn't return a phone call from Bloomberg News seeking comment. A spokeswoman for Durval de Noronha Goyos Jr., a lawyer for Google in Brazil, said he was in a meeting and could not immediately comment.

In a letter to prosecutors in May, Google said its Brazilian unit isn't responsible for the content on Orkut. The unit's lawyer, Noronha, said all data on Orkut is hosted on servers in the U.S., which are managed by Google Inc. Any request for information from Google must be directed to the parent company, he wrote.

David Drummond, Google's development vice president and member of the company's legal affairs board, told Brazilian lawmakers in a hearing on April 26 that the company is willing to cooperate with prosecutors in countries where it has operations and that the company has set up controls to prevent offensive content on its service.