Internet Group do Brasil (iG) is a Brazilian

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

that owns and operates

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

s and provides a variety of services, including

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

shopping Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A Retail#Shopper profiles, typology of shopper types ha ...

and financial information. iG offered free e-mail accounts until 2016. At the time it was bought in March 2012, iG was the fifth-largest portal in Brazil, with 23.5 million unique monthly visitors.

History

iG was founded on January 9, 2000, by GP Investments and Banco Opportunity. It gained popularity by offering free

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

access. In May 2004, Brasil Telecom (then a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

of Oi since 2009) acquired iG for approximately $100 million. In April 2012, Oi sold iG to Portuguese investment company Ongoing Strategy Investments SGPS SA for an undisclosed sum.

Good News Day

In 2001, the Brazilian news portal iG was at the center of a case that has since become a subject of journalism courses. At the height of its popularity, when it was one of the most visited portals in Brazil, iG designated

September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, as a day exclusively dedicated to positive news, diverging from the hard news approach that remains a hallmark of the platform today. At the time, iG was the largest news portal in Brazil. The idea for "Good News Day" was conceived as a marketing strategy amid an increasing wave of negative news, particularly regarding public safety. Shortly before September 11, Patrícia Abravanel, daughter of TV host Silvio Santos, had been kidnapped. After her release, the mastermind behind the crime, Fernando Dutra Pinto, made a dramatic escape by invading Silvio Santos' mansion. With the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the initiative—chosen on an arbitrary date—had to be abandoned in favor of journalistic newsworthiness. The then-director of journalism at iG, Leão Serva, acknowledging the breach of commitment to readers, wrote an editorial on the same day titled "iG tried, but history did not allow it." The event was depicted in the short film O Dia da Boa Notícia, which was a semifinalist at the São Paulo Film Festival, directed by Lucas Zacarias and João Paulo Vicente.

References

Companies based in São Paulo Internet service providers of Brazil Internet technology companies of Brazil {{Brazil-company-stub

History

Good News Day

See also

References