The Jungle Book

I just received the following email from Brazil´s AdSense Team:

(translated)

From: “Google AdSense” adsense-pt@google.com
Subject: Important message about your AdSense payment

Hello;

We´d like to inform you that the delivery of your AdSense paycheck, from December, was aborted, unexpectedly, due to restrictions imposed by brazilian customs laws, related to courier-delivered checks.

be assured we are working to solve this impasse as soon as possible and we will contact you again as soon as we´ve further information.

So, after the Government tried to close Orkut, the Justice tried to close YouTube, now we´ve a classic Mexican standoff, Google at a side, brazilian government at the other?

What kind of government is stupid enough to block INCOMING money? there´s not even a single fracking tax advantage to people who BRING money to the country, but at least  we should´ve equal rights to people who make money in country.

No, looks like we´re the bad guys.

Well, guess what: If things are not solved very quickly Everybody will lose. Specially  Brazil´s IRS.

Use the Technorati adsenselock or sign this blog´s RSS if you want to keep up with further developments.

This is YouTube for most of Brazil. Telefonica is redirecting the  requests to a page explaining about the Court Order. It covers every company with international links and has no ending date in sight.

Brasil Telecom was the first, and others are following. Embratel, the largest brazilian backbone provider will close the traffic to and from YouTube in a few hours.

I think don´t even CHINA blocks youtube altogether.

Shame on you, Brazil, shame on you.

Brasil Telecom confirmed: “It was a court order”. Bia Kunze and CBN Radio talked to the company´s Press department and finally there´s an official statement:

“It was a court order and we´ve no further comments about it”

So the whole YouTube service is now blocked for millions of users because of a single video, that is against it´s rules anyway.

The judges can´t understand how the Internet works and we get the shortest straw?

Yes, Virginia, the user. A whole service out? Is Daniela Cicarelli bigger than RIAA? Is she bigger than MPAA? Don´t think so. It´s our own Legal System that´s wrong.

Judges are not gods. They can´t decide the fate of millions with a single penstroke. Frack, they were not even ELECTED.

Brasil Telecom for the first time acknowledged the YouTube blocking. Bia Kunze, a local blogger,podcaster, journalist and radio personality managed to reach a representative of BRT, and digged the statement, from a phone call 1 hour ago:

“We are aware of the YouTube non-access (sic). However we don´t have any more information right now. We ask you to wait for a formal statement”

Bia noticed that the press assessor measured “word by word” and the word “problem” never once used. (in a way longer conversation, while her credentials were checked at CBN Radio)

I did a few checks using Bia´s connection.

Not only Brasil Telecom is blocking the outside traffic to YouTube, but they´re also blocking any DNS requests, too. Pings return “could not find host”. Direct pings to YouTube´s IPs return “host unreachable”.

A traceroute ends at their last machine in Brazil:

C:\Documents and Settings\Bia>tracert 208.65.153.241

Rastreando a rota para 208.65.153.241 com no máximo 30 saltos

1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 10.1.1.1
2 16 ms 15 ms 14 ms BrT-L10-ctaje700.dsl.brasiltelecom.net.br [201.1. 5.255.254]
3 * * 18 ms BrT-G8-2-700-ctaje300.brasiltelecom.net.br [201.
10.218.21]
4 * * * Esgotado o tempo limite do pedido.
5 * * * Esgotado o tempo limite do pedido.
6 * * * Esgotado o tempo limite do pedido.
7 * * * Esgotado o tempo limite do pedido.

We´re all becoming VERY worried down here, because Brazil has a history of totalitarism, censorship and fragile civil liberties. And no, we don´t have an ACLU here. Not even an EFF.

The local nonsense is a part of life, in a country where the President thinks Tsunamis are “wind storms”, but sometimes the surrealism goes too far.

A Justice decision demanded a immediate BAN of all YouTube services in Brazil, because the company didn´t acknowledged a prior Court order to remove some videos.

The whole story: A few months Ago a model / tv show host and (specially) Ronaldo´s ex-wife, Daniela Cicarelli was filmed having sweet, sweet sex on the beach, and I´m not talking about the drink.

The scenes were aired, by some some Spanish TV, and seconds later were all around the world. Brazil has not many celebrities sex tapes, hers was the first major one.

Lots, lots of blogs started to spread the video, using YouTube, Bit Torrent, Kazaa and all P2P services known by men (and some women).

Daniela went crazy, started to sue big portals, including Globo.com, the Internet arm from her former (and eventual) employer and the largest entertainment/news company in Brazil. (talk about burning bridges)

Somehow the lawsuits were accepted by Court, and the sites had 24 hours to remove the video or pay a US$116.000/day fine. The decision meant NADA to sites like Rapidshare and the whole P2P gang, and of course, YouTube.

YouTube ALREADY removes inappropriate content, but it can´t block every single upload, specially if the submitter does not use “video da cicarelli” or other related tag.

The judges are not really into technology in Brazil, so they think they can rule about anything. Including companies 10K miles away, in another country. It´s common restraining orders (trying) to block online content, and a blogger were sued (and lost) on defamation premisses, based on a comment left by a reader.

Local judges sometimes think they´re God, but the worst are those who are sure of that.

But some are not dumb. Sérgio Suiama, from the Federal Justice Department, thinks the decision is meaningless. “Justice will send a subpoena to all ISPs demanding the blocking of access to YouTube?”

Well, what did you expect from a Justice/Legislative branch so unrelated to reality that puts interest rates in the Constitution?

Sources (all in Portuguese, sorry)

IDG Now! and MeioBit