Ferrari Mailing List: FW: F1 Racing Driver Barrichello Wins $500, 000 Libel Suit Against Google

[Steve Cook (stevec]

Feed: TechCrunch
Posted on: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 3:39 AM
Author: Robin Wauters
Subject: F1 Racing Driver Barrichello Wins $500,000 Libel Suit Against Google

 

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Google <http://google.com>  has been ordered by a Brazilian court to pay 
Formula One racing driver Rubens Barrichello 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubens_Barrichello>  $500,000 in damages for the 
presence of fake online profiles of the driver on its social network Orkut 
<http://www.orkut.com> , which is hugely popular in the man’s home country. 

The civil case, which was filed in July 2006, related to hundreds of fake 
profiles 
<http://www.orkut.com/Main#UniversalSearch?origin=box&exp=1&q=barrichello>  for 
Barrichello that were created on Orkut, some of which depicted him as a toy 
turtle – I kid you not 
<http://www.orkut.com/Main#Profile?uid=18387339015952171969> . 

Earlier this week, Brazilian media published the outcome of the Sao Paulo 
court’s ruling, which ordered Google to compensate Barrichello half a million 
dollars in damages upfront and a daily fine of $590 until all the profile pages 
relating to the F1 driver were removed from the social network. Note: different 
media report different amounts.

Google told local reporters that it will always remove illegal content from 
Orkut but does not feel responsible for all other content that appears on 
there, and they don’t expect to have to police negative commentary about 
celebrities. Google can still appeal the case in higher court.

This isn’t the first time Google finds itself in Brazilian courts over Orkut.

On August 22, 2006, a Brazilian Federal Judge ordered Google to release Orkut 
user’s information of a list of about two dozen Brazilian nationals, believed 
to be using the social network to sell drugs and to be involved in child 
pornography. The judge ordered Google to pay $23,000 per day in fines until the 
information was turned over to the Brazilian government. Google back then 
stated that it would not release the information, on the grounds that the 
requested information is on Google servers in the U.S. and not in Brazil, and 
is therefore not subject to its national laws.

For what it’s worth, multi-millionaire Barrichello was looking for ‘respect 
rather than money’, and that he would be donating the money awarded to him in 
court to his non-profit organization Barrichello Kanaan Foundation 
<http://ibk.org.br/en/index.php> . On Monday, the F1 driver tweeted a quote 
<http://twitter.com/rubarrichello/status/5567860419>  from Swiss philosopher 
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (which I suspect was freely translated from his famous 
quote “There is no respect for others without humility in one’s self”).

My guess is he simply doesn’t like turtles 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMNry4PE93Y> .

(Via F1Planet <http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3213_5686825,00.html> )

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