After Internet search giant Google failed to remove a contentious YouTube video linked to Brazil elections, the company's chief of Brazilian operations - Fabio José Silva Coelho - was detained for questioning by the federal police of Brazil and later released, on Wednesday.

Coelho's detention by the Brazilian federal police was a result of Google's failure to take note of a court order - issued by a judge in Mato Grosso do Sul state - which required the company to take down a YouTube video that featured some incendiary comments about Campo Grande city's mayoral candidate, Alcides Bernal.

Since the Brazilian electoral law imposes a ban on campaign ads which "offend the dignity or decorum" of a candidate, the court had demanded the removal of the contentious video because it supposedly publicized the details of an alleged paternity suit by showing that mayoral candidate Bernal had asked his lover to go in for an abortion.

With the court order noting that the contentious video marked a violation of a stringent 1965 Electoral Code in Brazil, Coelho was questioned by the police because the state's electoral court had ruled that the executive was to be blamed for Google's non-compliance with the court's order.

Meanwhile, in response to the Coelho's detention, a Google spokesman recently said in Brazil that the company intends to appeal the court's YouTube video-removal order; and elaborated that Google, as a platform, was "not responsible for the content posted to its site."