As I was reading up on software industry in Brazil, I came across a few references to the importance of government purchases – the papers claimed that Brazilian government is widely recognized as a leader in moving its activities to the Internet, e.g. reaching higher rate of e-filing of income taxes than US. Yesterday, I got some direct experience with this while trying to purchase airline tickets. As it turns out, everyone in Brazil has an equivalent of American “social security number,” known as “CPF” (“Cadastro de Pessoas Fisicais” – “Registry of Physical Persons”). Unlike US, CPF is required for all online purposes. Further more, companies check CPF in government databases in real time to verify that it matches the name provided. Presumably, the purpose is to make sure that all online purchases are tracked for tax purposes. I am of too minds about this. On one hand, I am impressed that they got all of this working. On the other hand, there is a creepy “number of the beast” aspect to it. And needless, to say, as a foreigner without the magic number, I am annoyed I can’t make purchases online on my own. I guess there are still limits to globalization.