This week, the digital market in Latin America was marked by the arrest of Diego Dzodan, VP LATAM, Facebook, for not complying with the local regulation of WhatApp's data disclosure to a Court in the northeast of the country. Moreover, the LATAM weekly RoundUp brings the numbers of Latin American usage of social media — which should represent 36% of all Facebook’s use by the end of the year; and the importance of Brazilian mobile market to Optimise’s results in 2015.

Data privacy: Vice-president of Facebook in Latin America arrested in Brazil

Last Tuesday (1 March) Diedo Dzodan, VP, Facebook Latin America, was arrested by the Brazilian police for not complying with the Justice in disclosing data from WhatsApp users. According to a Court in Sergipe, a Brazilian state in the Northeast of the country, the company denied access to data from users related in a investigation about drug dealers in Brazil.

“The information was requested so we could bring up proof against individuals in an investigation of organised crime and drug dealing, which is currently being held secretly by the Brazilian Justice”, said the Federal Police, in a press statement. Dzodan was taken based in a law that establishes from 3-8 years in jail for people who put themselves as blockers of a criminal investigation. A fine of R$50k (£9k) per day for holding the information was also applied to the company — and later raised to R$1m (£180k).

Dzodan spent one night in a temporary prison and left after getting a habeas corpus — while the market discussed what are the implications for ad tech after the first severe punishment related to a company that stores data from its users. Last year, WhatsApp was blocked in Brazil for 12 hours as a result for not disclosing user data related to the same investigation.

The main criticism in general to the arrest is related to the fact that the Brazilian Government has yet to establish the rules for access to data information for digital business. Specialists say that, in the current state of the Civil Law (Marco Civil da Internet), Facebook did not commit any illegal activity. The Civil Law states that authorities can request access to this kind of content, as long as they inform the legal reasons and publish an annual report about those kind of requests.

Talking about Facebook...

By the end of this year, Latin American users should represent 39% of the total Facebook users. The numbers compiled by eMarketer show Argentina as the country with a highest usage — reaching 96.3% of the country’s social media users or 47.6% of their total population.

Mexico is the leader when considering the amount of internet users: Facebook is used by 73.3% of them. Brazil (72.6%), and Argentina (70%) come next.

Yet, Brazil is the country with the highest number of Facebook users in the region, expected to reach 87 million by the end of 2016. Mexico is the second Latin American country on Facebook, with 52 million people.

Twitter, on the other hand, should be among 16.4% of the Latin American population, according to eMarketer’s measurement. The microblog is the fourth social network in the region, says comScore: Facebook, Blogger and LinkedIn are the top three.

Mobile Performance on the Spotlight

Brazil should be the biggest mobile market by 2018, forecasts eMarketer. Therefore, with no surprise, when looking at Optimise’s numbers for 2015, the country takes off. The company analysed eight million transactions globally last year and emphasised that Brazil accounted for 38% of the total mobile traffic, way above the 10% registered in 2014.

Breaking down the numbers, 35% of the Brazilian traffic comes from smartphones, almost double the number registered one year before (8%). Android is dominant, with 96% of their traffic.

Compared to other of Optimise’s markets, Brazil is in the spotlight for representing more than 50% of the company’s traffic. “Last quarter, we had the opportunity to work directly with great bands who invested more than R$200k (£37k) in mobile, making us more experienced and assertive to deliver better results in mobile devices”, said Lucila Vazquez, head of Client Services, Optimise Brazil.