Michael Zimmer.org

Social network services are increasingly being used in legal and criminal investigations. Google’s social networking site Orkut, which is immensely popular in Brazil, is no exception.
In 2006, I commented on Google’s decision to comply with a Brazilian court order to release data on Orkut users to help Brazilian authorities investigate use of the site related to racism, pedophilia and homophobia. Part of Google’s justification was that the data requested by Brazilian authorities was “relatively discrete — small and narrow.” They weren’t turning over massive amounts of general data, but specific …

Boing Boing has two good posts detailing how Google has been cooperating with Mumbai and Brazilian authorities to help censor content and track down offenders on their Orkut social networking service.
In the Mumbai case:
The Indian Express and other regional media are reporting that Google’s social networking service Orkut will cooperate with the Mumbai Police to share IP addresses of users who post “objectionable content” on Orkut. If reports are to be believed, the police need only email a complaint to Orkut, and Orkut will send back the personally identifying data, …

Here’s a good example of the kind of information Google collects from users of its non-search products:
The Washington Post is reporting that Google will comply with a Brazilian court order to release data on users of its Orkut social networking site to help Brazilian authorities investigate use of the site related to racism, pedophilia and homophobia. The article explains Google’s logic as to why it was acceptable to release user data in this case, but not when the DOJ requested data earlier this year:
The Justice Department wanted Google’s entire search …