Brazil Freezes Facebook Funds in Latest Clash over WhatsApp Messages
July 28 2016 - 11:10AM
Dow Jones News
By Will Connors
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Brazilian federal prosecutors have frozen 38
million reais (about $11.6 million) of Facebook Inc. funds,
prosecutors said late Wednesday, in the latest dispute over access
to WhatsApp messages.
Brazilian prosecutors in the northern state of Amazonas blocked
the funds after Facebook refused to obey a court order to hand over
information contained in some users' WhatsApp messages, according
to a statement from prosecutors.
A representative from Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, didn't
immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 38 million reais corresponds to one million reais for every
day since Facebook's "noncompliance" with a court order to turn
over WhatsApp messages relating to a criminal investigation,
prosecutors said.
Earlier this month a Brazilian judge shut down WhatsApp service
across Brazil after a similar request for cooperation was declined.
Service was restored that same day after Brazil's Supreme Court
overturned a lower court's decision.
It was the third time since December that WhatsApp had been
blocked by local judges, who wield significant individual power in
Brazil. Each time, service was quickly restored. Each block leaves
hundreds of millions of Brazilians without access to the most
popular app in the country. More than half of Brazil's population
of 200 million are estimated to use WhatsApp, many of whom rely on
it as their primary means of communication.
Facebook says WhatsApp doesn't store users' messages and, thus,
can't share what it doesn't have.
In March, Brazilian federal police briefly detained the vice
president of Facebook's Latin America operations, Diego Dzodan, for
allegedly not complying with police requests to access WhatsApp
messages linked to an organized-crime and drug-trafficking case.
Facebook at the time criticized the arrest and said the executive
had no connection to the investigation.
Write to Will Connors at william.connors@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 28, 2016 10:55 ET (14:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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