Neal Ungerleider — Fast Company
Brazil is one of the biggest foreign markets around for Facebook and Google–and it’s one of the places where the NSA loves to snoop on the President’s email accounts. It’s also a place where the Internet landscape is diverging from the United States in a way that benefits ordinary digital citizens: On April 21, Brazil’s congress passed a legally binding “Internet Bill of Rights.”
The Brazilian Internet Bill of Rights, called the Marco Civil and signed by president Dilma Rousseff in Sao Paulo, guarantees net neutrality, regulates government surveillance on the Internet, and places limits on data companies can collect from Brazilian customers. In addition, Internet service providers won’t be held liable for content published by their customers and will be legally required to remove offensive material via court order. The legislation’s signing took place at a global Internet governance conference, NETMundial, in front of executives from Google and several other firms.