Safernet Brasil

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Nov. 15, 2007 (IPS/GIN) -- Latin America
is at risk of becoming a hideout for people who post child
pornography and racist content on the internet, especially as
authorities in Eastern Europe and the U.S. crack down on such
activities.

Experts sounded this warning at the United Nations-sponsored
Internet Governance Forum this week in Rio de Janeiro, where
delegates have been addressing issues such as the security and
accessibility of the Web.

Many of the Web sites bearing illegal and harmful content were
hosted by the Czech Republic. But after the clampdown there, many
migrated to Panama, according to Thiago Tavares, head of the
nongovernmental organization SaferNet Brasil.

A law professor at the Catholic University of Salvador, Tavares
receives information and tracks complaints about cybercrime in
Brazil. So far he has also found 100 portals with child pornography
content hosted in Panama.

"That set off an alarm," he said.

The expert fears that the large gaps in legislation in Latin
American countries may encourage the proliferation of sites with
illicit content.

Among the legal shortcomings, Tavares mentioned the absence of
harmonization between the laws of different countries.

"There's no cooperation network, policy integration between
different countries, or strong social movement. Only a few NGOs are
fighting pedophilia, and no Latin American country has created a
plan of action specifically to fight crimes like pedophilia and
racism on the Internet," he said.

"For all these reasons, the region is highly vulnerable," he
added.

In Brazil the highest-profile case is that of Orkut, a social
networking site operated by Google, which "regrettably became a
paradise for cybercrime in Brazil. Thousands of pedophiles and
racists use Orkut to distribute child pornography, attract underage
children and commit all sorts of human rights violations," Tavares
said.

Brazil's 35 million Internet users account for more than half
of those in Latin America as a whole.

Some 25 million people in Brazil visit Orkut, nearly 70 percent
of all Internet users in this country of more than 188 million
people.

According to SaferNet, 1.3 million Internet users in Brazil are
children or adolescents who surf the Internet from their homes. Out
of these, 53 percent visit social networking and discussion sites
such as Orkut.

There is no evidence that Orkut carries more illegal or harmful
content than other social portals. But since it is such a popular
site among Brazilian Internet users, the overall scale of the
criminal content is shocking.

In the past two years, 50,000 Internet pages related to human
rights crimes and violations -- including 19,000 containing child
pornography -- have been detected, according to SaferNet.

In the view of Tavares and other experts at the Internet
Governance Forum, the difficulties that the Brazilian authorities
have in identifying and punishing Brazilian nationals who use
international services such as Orkut for criminal activities is the
main problem.

Until recently, Google refused to give the authorities
information about users identified as suspects by police and
judicial inquiries, federal prosecutor Sergio Gardenghi Suiama
said.

The prosecutor, who is handling the civil lawsuit against Google
in Brazil, said the company argued that user data requested by the
judicial authorities was stored in the United States and therefore
prosecution must occur under U.S. law.

"We argue that if the crimes were committed by Brazilians, as
there is no doubt they were, it is Brazilian law that applies, and
Google's subsidiary in Brazil must answer to the authorities here,"
he said.

But when the Brazilian government threatened Google with fines
and penalties, the company backed down, shared data on some of its
Orkut users and began expediting the removal of illegal content
from the Web.

Google's net income for the third quarter of 2007 was more than
$1 billion, a 46 percent increase from a year ago. This
extraordinary growth was partly due to the "Orkut fever" that has
swept through Brazil, although the company has lost "millions of
dollars" in advertising revenue, Tavares said.

"Google was selling advertising space on its Orkut site, and
some ads ended up on pages containing child pornography. When
advertisers found out, they started to cancel their contracts,"
Tavares said. "That was one of the main reasons why Google changed
its attitude toward cooperating with Brazilian prosecutors."

Eduardo Fumes Parajo, president of the Brazilian Association of
Internet Service Providers, said the association's members are
working on a self-regulated code of conduct to avoid such conflicts
in the future.

In 2005, the association signed an agreement with the office of
the public prosecutor to facilitate investigations of child
pornography, racism and hate-mongering, which included willingness
on the part of Internet providers to hand over user information
when requested by the police or the justice system, as well as to
store data on clients for a longer period of time, in order to
preserve potential evidence.

"This is a social question. Providers approach this issue as an
integral part of their business. No one wants criminal content on
their pages or networks. It creates a very negative impression, and
advertisers and users themselves stop using the site," said the
head of the association of internet service providers, which
represents 300 companies, including Microsoft Brazil.

To participants in the forum, which ran Monday through Thursday,
the fundamental issue is getting similar or harmonized legislation
implemented to control the Internet -- a sphere that recognizes
neither borders nor cultural differences.

Some have proposed a sort of international tribunal to deal with
these cases, under a forum like the United Nations. Others would
prefer short and medium-term methods, such as setting up
cybercrime-busting networks between cooperating countries.

"I don't think a single tribunal would be able to cope with the
cultural diversity of the whole of humanity [that is] present on
the Internet," said Tavares, who pointed out that in countries such
as the Netherlands, erotic images involving children are more
common on the Internet and are more tolerated than in Latin
American countries.

Another example is that in the United States, online racism is
not such a serious crime as in Brazil, Suiama said.

"I think the main limitation is that we only have national laws
to combat a problem that transcends national borders and is in fact
transnational," said the prosecutor, who added that he favored
establishing "truly global Internet governance" in the medium term.

But in the immediate future, legal loopholes in countries such
as Brazil should be closed, he said, noting that this country still
does not have a specific law against possession of child
pornography.

The private sector, represented by the Brazilian Association of
Internet Service Providers, would prefer ethical self-regulation.

Setting up cooperation networks involving the police, the
justice system and civil society, like those already in existence
in Europe, is an urgent priority for Latin America, Tavares said.