The Superior Court of Justice (STJ) decided on Wednesday (14/09) that Google Brazil does not have an obligation to make prior control over messages posted on Orkut. A user asked the justice to compensation for moral damages after being the target of insults posted on social networking pages.
The decision of the Third Class of the court is an enormous victory for the world's largest search engine (today, a very complete company in various segments of the large network). It was decided that Google needs to keep track of the IP users and to comply with the removal of content that is considered offensive. But not previously, as called for that viewer.
This dispute is ancient. In the first instance, the judge ruled that Google should delete a photo album and messages perceived as offensive, and to pay compensation of U.S. $ 8,300 for the internet. Google has tried to appeal the decision before the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais (TJMG), a higher court, but lost again because the magistrate found that the company assumed the risk of misuse of the service by offering Orkut to anyone with Internet access .
In the most recent decision, the company says in his defense that can not be held responsible for the messages - after all, the company had no share in the creation of the profile that published the comments taken as offensive by the complainant.
The author of the message
Minister for Nancy, to control in advance the contents of a message would be tantamount to breaking the secrecy of communications. This behavior is forbidden by the famous Article 5 of the Constitution, which deals with the individual and collective freedoms. There is written in the law that "is free expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific and communication, without any censorship or license."
Besides the case for Google to make perfect sense, it must be remembered that the decision opens a precedent for future cases that eventually companies will suffer because of the Internet activity of certain users.
The decision of the Third Class of the court is an enormous victory for the world's largest search engine (today, a very complete company in various segments of the large network). It was decided that Google needs to keep track of the IP users and to comply with the removal of content that is considered offensive. But not previously, as called for that viewer.
This dispute is ancient. In the first instance, the judge ruled that Google should delete a photo album and messages perceived as offensive, and to pay compensation of U.S. $ 8,300 for the internet. Google has tried to appeal the decision before the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais (TJMG), a higher court, but lost again because the magistrate found that the company assumed the risk of misuse of the service by offering Orkut to anyone with Internet access .
In the most recent decision, the company says in his defense that can not be held responsible for the messages - after all, the company had no share in the creation of the profile that published the comments taken as offensive by the complainant.
The author of the message
Minister for Nancy, to control in advance the contents of a message would be tantamount to breaking the secrecy of communications. This behavior is forbidden by the famous Article 5 of the Constitution, which deals with the individual and collective freedoms. There is written in the law that "is free expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific and communication, without any censorship or license."
Besides the case for Google to make perfect sense, it must be remembered that the decision opens a precedent for future cases that eventually companies will suffer because of the Internet activity of certain users.
