Net dumb no more

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, the

  ANUI (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:

  Germany

  http://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.