Brasilia - A day after Brazilian police stopped a fight between rival football fans organised on a popular Google website, authorities clashed with the Internet giant over access to user information to prevent crimes.
Orkut, a Google online community website that allows friends to keep in touch and network, was at the centre of the debate between Brazilian and Google officials appearing before the Chamber of Deputies' Human Rights Committee.
Brazilian authorities monitoring online messages for possible crimes want the US company to turn over users' personal information to help stop crimes an abuse like the street battle between the football fans.
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Federal Police Commissioner Cristiano Barbosa Sampaio told the committee lawmakers needed to draft legislation allowing authorities to prevent such crimes.
The law would have to "guarantee access to administrative data from (Internet) providers that many times - like Google - refuse to hand information to protect the user's privacy," Sampaio said.
Human rights prosecutor Paulo Suiama said authorities had received more than 14 000 complaints against Orkut for threats, racism and drug trafficking in March alone.
"The only Internet company that does not cooperate with authorities is Google Brazil," Suiama said, noting that authorities contacted Google four times last year without success.
Google general counsel David Drummond told the committee that the company could be sanctioned in other countries if it hands users' personal information to Brazilian authorities.
The profiles of Orkut users are kept in servers in the United States and Britain, Drummond said.
The California-based company recently cited concerns over user privacy rights in a legal battle with US authorities seeking information on web searches on the Google website.
Last month, a US judge ordered Google to turn over some data on sites in its popular search engine, though much less than the US government wanted.
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