FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Brazil No Longer Plans to Secede from the Internet

A rule that would have required Brazilians' data be stored in Brazil will be dropped.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff with President Obama in 2011, before the NSA kerfluffle. Image: Roberto Stuckert Fliho/PR

After discovering that the NSA was spying on its citizens, the Brazilian government responded by looking into either building its own internet, or at least removing itself from the US-dominated one. Now, a government minister has said that the key aspect of the plan—a proposed rule requiring Brazilians' data be stored in Brazil—will be dropped.

Congressional relations minister Ideli Salvatti told reporters Tuesday that the rule, which was floated after the NSA surveillance revelations and would have forced any global tech company to store Brazilians' data within the country's borders, will be dropped from an internet governance reform bill supported by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

Advertisement

Instead, according to Reuters, the rule will be changed to require international internet companies to comply with Brazilian laws when it comes to protecting and securing Brazilian data. Other key provisions of the country's so-called "Internet Constitution" would remain the same, including net neutrality regulation barring local telecom providers from offering tiered bandwidth plans. And as Circa notes, Brazil did strike a deal with the European Union for a $185 million undersea cable from Fortaleza to Lisbon, which will help diversify its network access.

As we wrote when the idea was first pitched, the concept of extricating an entire country from the internet is pretty far out there, and even requiring that companies store local data locally—while certainly compelling—is unfeasible. For one, it'd be a tough new technical and legal hurdle for every foreign tech company large enough to receive compliance scrutiny.

On another, more practical level, storing all that data means a boom in server capacity, which would require massive infrastructure investment. Even for local tech firms that take advantage of cheap cloud storage based in, say, the Arctic, flipping everything to Brazil would be a huge undertaking, and extremely costly. As Bruce Douglas wrote for us last year:

It’s going to be seriously expensive. Nelson Wortsman, the head of Brasscom, which represents local tech and IT companies, estimates the start-up cost for a data center in Brazil is USD $61 million, versus USD $51 million in Chile or USD $43 million in the United States. Actually running the thing would cost USD $100 million a year, versus USD $51 million in the US, thanks to a myriad of cost-inflating local factors known collectively as the "Brazil cost."

To be fair, that investment is already being made. As Al Jazeera wrote in a great deep dive into the issue last fall, the plan to extricate Brazil from the internet "obscures its massive Web growth challenging US dominance." Brazil's internet infrastructure has boomed in recent years, in large part due to increased focus on internet access issues given by the Rousseff administration.

Along with building international connectivity, Rousseff has emphasized developing better infrastructure domestically in a bid to close what remains a large digital divide across the rich urban and poor rural parts of the country. Additionally, added focus on developing domestic content has helped fill and monetize those new pipes.

For Brazilian citizens and internet companies—excluding telecoms, perhaps—the emphasis on access growth and net neutrality are huge in supporting the country's growing tech sector. With the provision regarding local data storage dropped, Rousseff surely won support for the new internet legislation, but opponents are still vocally against the bill. We'll find out how it fares when the bill comes to a vote on March 25.