Taringa!


Taringa! was an Argentine-based social networking site geared toward Hispanophone users.
Taringa! had a 27 million registered user base, according with Taringa's own metrics, who create and share thousands of daily posts on general interest topics such as life hacks, tutorials, recipes, reviews, and art.
The platform had a presence in every country in the Spanish-speaking world – its main markets were Argentina, Spain, Colombia, and Chile. According to comScore statistics in 2013, it was the fourth most popular Latin American Social Network and the second one in traffic only after Facebook, since then the site's traffic has dramatically declined, dropping up to the 3898th place in the Alexa Ranking on December 30, 2020.

History

Taringa! was created in 2004 by Fernando Sanz. As it grew, it wasy sold to Alberto Nakayama and the Botbol brothers, Matías and Hernán. In September 2017, Taringa! suffered a database breach when almost 28 million database entries were leaked. In 2019, it was acquired by blockchain company IOV Labs. The website announced on March 11, 2024 that it would shut down from March 24, due to changing trends in social media platforms and the difficulty of monetizing in such an environment.

Structure

Taringa! users interacted with the site by posting text or media content, and by commenting or favoriteing others' posts. Top-rated content could be featured on the site's Tops page. The home page of Taringa! displayed top posts and recent posts. Users could create and join groups called communities around specific areas of interest.

Internet regulation problems

Legal issues

According to the protocol of Taringa!, users are only allowed to post links to original content created by the user, or other contents that don't infringe copyright laws. For example, scanned photographs that are already in the public domain, a linux tutorial, or articles written by the user themselves are allowed, but uploading a copyrighted movie is not allowed. When there are links that infringe copyright laws, they must be removed by the administrators and moderators of the page according to Taringa!'s own protocol.
The owners of Taringa! alleged that the website worked as an interchange site, so it did not host any file, but at the same time users sometimes posted links that violated copyright. There were also posts with content that had been extracted from other websites or personal blogs, although Taringa! required that every post mention its sources. Moreover, the owners remarked that Taringa! only showed links to content, and that anyone could search for specific content like music or software, in the same way that those links could be searched on Google or Yahoo.
In May 2011, the owners of Taringa were accused of enabling copyright infringement and sentenced to pay $200,000. The Botbol brothers were also prosecuted for infringing article 72 of Law 11.723, which regulates copyright in Argentina. Said article states that "any person who edits, sells or publishes a copyrighted work without permission from its authors will be sentenced to spend a period of one month to six years in jail".
The Botbol brothers were summoned to delete the posts containing copyrighted material, under threat of arrest for failing to comply. The owners of Taringa! alleged that they cannot determine if the material uploaded by users was breaking copyright rules, due to the fact that Taringa! had an average of 20,000 posts a day. They also stated that they were not able to access the Intellectual Property Office to know which works are under protection of copyright rules.
Additionally, the accused said that on March 23, 2009 all disputed material had been deleted from the website, but "other users uploaded it again on June 19, 2009".
Nevertheless, the court considered that the owners of Taringa! were conscious about the infringements committed and that in spite of deleting illegal content, they allowed forbidden material to remain on the website without being removed.
In October, 2011, The National Court of Appeals also prosecuted Alberto Nakayama, finding him responsible for publishing links that allowed users to download books without permission from their authors. The court also unveiled three precedent rulings that seized Nakayama's assets for $100,000, $200,000 and $300,000 respectively.
The court, formed by Judges Marcelo Lucini and Mario Filozof, described that the prosecuted, as owners of Wiroo S.R.L., subscribed the hosting services of Taringa! offering users "the possibility of sharing and downloading material with no permission from the authors for its publication on the website. Therefore, they helped users to spread the illegal reproduction of the material published".
On the other side, Taringa! published on its website the same note that had been posted in May, 2011, when the prosecution of Botbol Brothers was confirmed. Once again the owners of Taringa! stated they had not committed any offense. They alleged that the works which they were prosecuted for "were not hosted on Taringa!, but in RapidShare, whose servers are located outside of Argentina", so Argentine law should not apply to the issue.
The resolution stated that Nakayama "is the owner of the site www.taringa.net, and all of them allowed material whose reproduction had not been authorized by its authors to be published on the webpage; although the publications redirected to other Internet site, it could not have been possible unless it was done through Taringa". "It was demonstrated that works were illegally reproduced uploading them to a webpage without being authorized by their creators", said the ruling.
In January 2012 Taringa! was included by the FBI as one of the websites investigated for copyright infringement and other cybercrimes, as stated in a written report that was part of the prosecution against Megaupload.
In May, 2012, it was announced that the owners of Taringa! would be judged under the charge of infringing copyright law in Argentina. They had been prosecuted for allowing the download of copyrighted legal and computer books through Taringa! website. Article 72 of Argentine copyright Law punishes with imprisonment from a minimum of one month to a maximum of six years. The trial was finally confirmed in September 2012, being the first time that the responsibility of websites for the illegal downloads made by their users will be discussed through oral proceedings in Argentina.
On October 4, 2012, by deciding to drop the appeal, the site Administrators forced the Federal VI Appealing Chamber to give the handling the case back to First Instance so that this would order Court N° 26.17 to proceed with the trial.

Taringa's approach and solution

In December 2012, the website announced an upgraded system to report content susceptible to copyright infringement. Taringa! uses the "notice and takedown" method which is based on a North American model of Intellectual Property management on the internet, known as Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Those procedures were made with the purpose of reaching an agreement with the "Cámara Argentina del Libro", the body that regulates book copyright in Argentina.
Finally, in 2013, after having established channels of communication with the owners of Taringa!, the main plaintiffs in the case decided to desist from continuing the lawsuit. In April that same year, Taringa! signed an agreement with some leading intellectual property organizations to make a joint effort to "democratise the circulation of culture commodities online."... "The agreement with Taringa "opened a new phase of development as far as copyright laws are concerned" as it was said after the meeting.

Other cases

In May 2015, Taringa! was dismissed from a complaint presented by Jorge Luis Borges's widow, María Kodama, the widow and sole heir of the rights of writer Jorge Luis Borges, for the alleged theft of intellectual property. The ruling established that internet companies cannot be held liable a priori for content shared by users across platforms and that there was no malicious intentions on the part of Taringa!.
Throughout April 2014, Kodama reported various websites which allegedly facilitated or reproduced unauthorized texts by Jorge Luis Borges on the internet. Finally, the courts made their settlement in line with the jurisprudence of recent cases in Argentina – p.e "Belén Rodriguez and Google" – making the legal accountability of internet intermediaries subjective.
According to this position, internet intermediary companies can only be considered accountable for any illegal content uploaded by users through their platforms once they are duly notified by the affected owner of a breach of law, and only if, once notified they do not proceed quickly and diligently in order to remove the content and stop infringement.

Social impact

In 2010, an Argentine user of the site built a bass guitar that he gifted to Paul McCartney when he visited Argentina for a series of concerts.
In 2012 Taringa! launched "T! Solidaridad", a branch of Taringa! dedicated to community service and corporate responsibility. Taringa! users promote charitable causes by raising awareness about donating and volunteering. Users can take action by posting in the category called "Solidaridad", which allows users to post requests and proposals for social action that will help people and animals in need. T! Solidaridad also contributes to these causes by collecting items for the homeless and children's organizations, as well as organizing blood drives and animal shelters.
Taringa! also published a book in July 2009. This consisted of a compilation of the most valued posts in the history of the site. The income derived from the book sales were donated to NGO "Un Techo para mi País".