Google shares info on suspected pedophiles
It wasn't immediately clear from Thursday's reports, but Google will indeed share information from its Orkut social-networking site with Brazilian authorities trying to deal with suspected pedophiles.
On Wednesday, the Brazilian Senate ordered Google to share information on 3,261 suspected pedophiles, information Google had refused to share earlier. No more.
"Google Brazil is legally obligated to comply with this order, and it is Google's policy to comply with valid judicial process," spokeswoman Sara Jew-lim said in a statement Friday.
Google already had tools in place to allow users to flag potentially illegal content, and it's now adding a filter "with the goal of blocking pornographic pictures when someone tries to upload them, so that these pictures will not be posted," she said.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
Form arms and torso!
And I'll form...the weeping head!
Let's go Crybaby Force!
Seriously. When it comes to the welfare of children, I've always said that there is nothing more sacred than their safety under any cost.
However, I do feel that Google did follow through with due process of a foreign country that they do business in. I think Yahoo should learn a lesson - instead of arbitrarily giving up information to a red country, they should have denied the request and followed a due process in the public light so that everything that transpired between the red government was transparent.
No country should say, "we want your records," without a formal reasonable order or request, which I can probably see is almost always given.
I also feel that when it comes to pedophiles, if they decide to try and thwart an investigation under any circumstances, up to and including the refusal to divulge passwords to encrypted resources, then it should be an automatic red flag and that person should then have their computer resources confiscated until they comply and then barred from using a computer or any other electronic form of communication device, other than a simple phone without any such digital messaging abilities.
If you have nothing to fear, then you have nothing to hide. Letting an investigator look at what you have isn't going to catastrophically harm your life. Harming a child...that's a different matter altogether. Isn't it?
"If you have nothing to fear, then you have nothing to hide."
Yeah, so we need more cameras and more wiretaps. Because the people watching over us are inherently benign. And noone was ever charged with a crime they didn't commit.