Brazilian Internet surfers are not alone
anymore. They now have their own consumer-oriented organization
to defend their rights in the huge sometimes downright scary
Information Superhighway out there. It’s the National Association
of Internet Users which already has close to 300 members and it
is growing fast.
Marcos Manhães Marins
- Internet in Brazil? The mere thought of it might be
absurd for some people living abroad. Even more so if
they have read about the difficulty of buying a telephone
in Brazil and the hurdles to get a clear line and then be
able to talk and to communicate without losing the
connection. Even those who believe Brazil is
technologically on a par with the First World nations
don’t believe Brazilians are sophisticated enough to use
all the resources of the Internet.An example of this
reasoning can be seen in an article about the Internet in
Brazil published July by Ieee/Spectrum, an
electric engineering British magazine. Says the
publication: “Few Brazilians will find immediate use
for the vast amount of commercial data that is indeed
available on the Net… There is little evidence of any
effort yet in either the public or the private sector to
create content in Portuguese that may help average
Internet users run their lives or business a bit more
efficiently… It is no surprise, then, that a connection
to the Internet, even more than the possession of a
cellular telephone, has become the status symbol among
the middle and upper classes in Brazil …”Carlos Duarte, a Brazilian computer scientist who
lives in London, wrote me about how disappointed he felt
reading those comments: “We know how vital the
Internet in Brazil has become. According to the latest
issue of the journal Communications, the Brazilian
Internet has the highest growth rate in the world.
However, the statements published in Spectrum do
not appear to recognize the value of its users to the
same extent. Certainly, the article deserves a
response.”The best answer to these and other similar questions
about Brazil is to show the world our country is not any
more that jungle Pedro Álvares Cabral found five
centuries ago when Portugal “discovered” our
land. Unfortunately, we have always to deal upfront with
these prejudices and misconceptions, but certainly some
people reading this do not know much about Brazil besides
the fact that the country a four-time-champion at the
Soccer World Cup.It’s true we have social problems because we have
built here two “brazils,” one very rich and one
very poor. But on both “brazils” people are in
visual touch with the “state-of-the-art”,
because people here may be starving but all of us watch
TV, from the filthy rich to the favelas’ (shanty
towns) inhabitants. The Internet is nothing new. Since
1989 our Universities were tinkering with the new
communication technology and the public in general are
familiar with it since mid-1995, when the Government
authorized private companies to provide connection
services. That was the very same year the World Wide Web
(WWW), that graphic colorful way to access the Internet,
was just being experience first hand by people all over
the planet.We are now a world of more than 400,000 users and
there estimates that we will be 1 million users, very
soon, maybe by the end of this year. According to
Ministry of Science and Technology, there are in Brazil
today about 400 Internet Commercial Providers and more
than 30.000 hosts (computers linked through a Domain
Name) and over 10,000 WEB pages. On TV it seems there is
an ad from Internet-ready computers in every program
break. Explode Coração, a very popular novela
(soap opera), has shown characters talking (mind
you, not writing) through the Internet while pacing on a
large living room (can your computer do this?) for
more than six months to 60% of 150 million Brazilians.However, as in any other country around the world,
Internet providers tend not to follow rules, due to a
virtual lack of real laws concerning their activities.
Since the Internet is a newborn market, laws are still
being discussed and questions like copyright, freedom of
speech, commercial transactions and many others are still
open to debate.Fortunately, in this day and age, Carlos Duarte and
other Brazilians together with all those interested in
Brazil can count on an organization created specifically
to defend Brazilian Internet users’ rights, theANUI (Associação Nacional de Usuários da Internet
— National Association of Internet Users). He got to
know its address through the Net and found at ANUI
hundreds of new fellows, his peers of same ideals, an
authentic movement of liberation of Brazilian Internet
users.How it all started
Some mailing-lists administered by the Brazilian
pioneer provider, IBASE-AlterneX, called
“apc.tribos” had been opened to outside users.
There, the Brazilian pioneer Internet surfers could
express freely their opinions about the quality and
methods of the Internet services. On April 20, it was
started a thread (Internetese to designate a series of
messages dealing with the same subject) called “The
provider role: A proposal for a broad discussion”
which was joined by 40 people.That was the embryo from which the association
developed. This unexpected interest to settle down some
concepts such as minimum package of services and minimum
standard of support a provider should offer led
participants to think of creating an association of
users. This association began with its own mailing-list
and a homepage in cyberspace. Messages were posted to
mailings lists such as the Webras-L at the University of
Campinas (Unicamp) and other “tribes.” São
Paulo’s Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), an economic
think tank, heard of our efforts offered space to shelter
the cause.In June, while FGV was preparing software to open a
listserver account to ANUI, another thread appeared on
that very apc.tribo.internet called this time: “For
better providers.” People from the first thread
joined those from the second and now we had a group of 60
users. We agreed on our name and we elected Paulo Rocha
to coordinate the movement. He was instrumental in
preparing the mailing list and the Website at Fundação
Getúlio Vargas, but people started demanding more from
the ANUI.Users urged more concrete actions, and on July 23rd,
counting on the sponsorship of CinemaBrazil, the homepage
http://www.cinemabrazil.com/anui.br
was launched. At the same time the mailing list
anui@artnet.com.br, sponsored by Artnet was started. The
group today counts with 300 associates and we expect to
be 30,000 by the end of next year.Can we help?
But what an association of this sort can effectively
do for its associates? This a frequent question in our
discussions. Should ANUI take part in lawsuits, start
lawsuits against bad providers, be an optional Consumers’
Act defender? The best definition of what we do was given
during one of these animated debates. “What are we?
A kind of cybernetic Green Peace?”, wrote
frota@manaus.pegasus.com.br Some people seemed to like
this concept. Yes, ANUI is a sort of Green Peace, a NGO
(Non Governmental Organization), a non-profit body
spontaneously and authentically born seeking more quality
and justice on the Net.An average net user in Brazil pays $30.00 a month for
the basic service. The provider’s attitude seems to be
one of “you are not happy go somewhere else. We
don’t need your here.” Very different from the kind
o service we are used to receive now from electronic
products’ vendors, for example. In this case, consumers
have the right to get the proper service, and when need
can use lawsuits to guarantee this right. An electronic
address at the Internet is similar to a home address. If
you move all the time, you lose contacts, friendships and
business.The association is intent on solving problems like
that pulling together hundreds, thousands of users and
going to the media if necessary. And what service would
like to see its name on a list of ANUI’s bad providers?
This will be a strong weapon for the association, which
is collecting information given by the providers
themselves and checked by ANUI associates. Our group will
also be able to file class actions, with all users,
members or not, benefiting from a favorable verdict.What’s the beef?
The most common complaints are:
1 – Technical support to users works just during
business hours, from around 9 AM to 5 PM.2 – Prices are too high, compared with other
countries.3 – Incomplete package of service. While certain
providers offer Telnet facilities, other do not, the same
goes for Newsgroup access, FTP, and so on.4 – Inadequate treatment by certain providers who
ignore inquiries made by e-mail and refuse to teach how
to use their services.5 – Limited authorization to use CGI scripts (programs
that allow, for example, the search in databases)ANUI intends to take some steps very soon: urging
improvement of services, requiring respectful treatment
and, of course, and demanding freedom of speech.Through the virtual office of ANUI
(http://www.cinemabrazil.com/anui.br) visitors may
subscribe to the discussion list and submit their data
through an on-line free registering form. They will
receive weekly E-newsletters summarizing decisions taken
by the Association. ANUI is also contacting associations
of Internet users in other countries so that the criteria
may be the most universal as possible, and many
experiences and tools may be interchanged for the success
of the movement. ANUI is not being created to be always
on the opposite side of Internet Providers. We will be
more than willing to clap our hands always we detect good
Internet products and services.Who’s who
Anyone who wishes to work together with the temporary
committees for ANUI’s creation, is more than welcome. We
can visit our homepage and write directly to some of
those helping during the organization’s initial phase.
Here they are:General coordinator: Paulo Rocha (ptrocha@bis.com.br )
Vice-general-coordinator: Francisco Nobre (fnobre@hexanet.com.br
)General Secretary: Hugo Peter Steiner (apogeo@inetminas.estaminas.com.br
)
Marketing/Image: Marcos Manhães Marins (webmaster@cinemabrazil.com
)Mailing List: Eduardo Gudin Prado (edugudin@Enterprise.cybernet.com.br
)FAQ/Weekly Digest: Fernando Newlands (newlands@mail.rio.com.br
)Public Relations: Fábio Becherini (becherini@if.usp.br
)Law Assistance: Marcelo A. A. Gama (magama@netalpha.com.br
)
We are a real Internet venture. Our WEB site editor
(Luiz Siqueira — siqueira@ax.ibase.org.br
) is based in Rio but he receives information from
volunteers in different states who make clipping of ANUI
published articles and arrange media covering for ANUI’s
events. Each volunteer is responsible for updating a page
of the site, which he downloads often to his
microcomputer at home or job, updates and uploads back
again to the virtual server. This server is based in
United States, but it’s owned by the Brazilian Cultural
Project “Cinema of Brazil in the Internet,”
avoiding this way conflicts of interest that could arise
were the ANUI site controlled by a Brazilian commercial
Internet Provider.
Other similar initiatives around the World
- We did not know there existed other Users’ associations
in other countries until we created ANUI. We were aware,
of course of the affiliates of Internet Society/Blue
Ribbon Campaign in favor of Free Speech on the Net, but
not of the Associations (our future partners) of Users,
such as those below:Germanyhttp://www.fitug.de – Informationstechnik und
Gesellschaft e.V. (FITUG e.V.)Spain
http://www.aui.es/ – Association de Usuarios de
Internet (AUI)France
http://www.aui.fr – Association des utilisateurs
d’Internet (AUI)http://www.afui.uplift.fr – Association française des
utilisateurs d’Internet (AFUI)BRAZIL
http://www.cinemabrazil.com/ANUI.br – Associação
Nacional dos Usuários da Internet (ANUI)Japan
http://www.iaj.or.jp/ – Internet Association of Japan
(IAJ)
- Marcos Manhães Marins uses the
Internet since September 1995. He is a graduate from
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and studied
moviemaking at University of London and at the British
Film Institute. You can E-mail him at cinemabrazil@ax.ibase.org.br or call his telephone (5521) 290-4593.