RIO DE JANEIRO, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Google Inc. and
the Federal Prosecution Office of Brazil's northeast Ceara state on Tuesday
signed an agreement aimed at accelerating the process to remove offensive and
illegal contents from the social network website Orkut.
According to the agreement, the Prosecution Office
will be able to access an exclusive web page that will help it request the
removal of contents regarded as offensive or illegal.
The service will also allow the entity to preserve
any kind of information that can be useful to investigation of illegal
activities.
Google, which runs Orkut, is committed to drafting a
team of employees specialized in fulfilling the Office's demands in a business
day's time.
In 2006, the Federal Prosecution Office charged
Google with not cooperating with police investigations and refusing to provide
information on users' profiles and communities hosted by Orkut, almost forcing
the U.S. group to close down its office in Brazil.
Google argued that all the data displayed on the
website were stored in the company's servers in the United States, and was not
available to its branch in the country.
Google has signed agreements with Prosecution Offices
in several Brazilian states so as to facilitate the settlement of problems with
the judicial system. The settlement originally depended on a series of court
decisions.