Google Won’t Hand Data Over To Brazil

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Google and Brazil have a love/hate relationship. Looks like hate is starting to win as Google refuses to hand over records to a Brazilian judge.

“We have and will continue to provide Brazilian authorities with information on users who abuse the Orkut service, if their requests are reasonable and follow an appropriate legal process,” said Frost who was in Sao Paulo for the court date. It is and always has been our intention to be as cooperative in the investigation and prosecution of crimes as we possibly can, while being careful to balance the interests of our users and the request from the authorities,” she added.

That said, they don’t plan on turning in the data on the premise that it’s stored in their US headquarters. The judge, of course, didn’t agree, saying that all of the information occured in Brazil, and the location of their servers was irrelevant.

There’s plenty at stake for Google, who has a tough making inroads against competitor MySpace, with their Orkut service. The service has been incredibly popular in Brazil, including with criminal elements.

This week, Google said it shut off 8 Orkut communites, but they claim it was not related to the court action.

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