Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | ‘Google cannot use India’s IT laws as shield’ by Arpit Parashar

‘Google cannot use India’s IT laws as shield’ by Arpit Parashar

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Feb 3, 2012   modified Modified on Feb 3, 2012

In the case against Google and Facebook for posting “objectionable content” on their websites, petitioner journalist Vinay Rai’s counsel H Hariharan argued in the Delhi High Court (HC) on Thursday that Google could not cite the country’s information technology laws and seek exemption from censoring content since it modified the content on its website to “generate business”.

Hariharan argued that Google India could not get exemption under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act since it was not just a search engine as it had argued in the last hearing. Google’s lawyer Neeraj Kishan Kaul had argued in the hearing on 16 January that Google only led surfers to sites they were looking for. “The offending material belongs to the website controlled by the owner of the website. Google has nothing to do with it,” he had said.

Hariharan argued instead that “… the company hosts sponsored link with the content to generate business. This is modifying the content and, therefore, the exemption does not apply in this case,” since Section 79 of the Act applies only when the intermediary website only hosts the content and does not modify it. He also pointed out from Google’s terms of services which say that “the company can, at anytime, stop any of the services without the prior knowledge of the user” and so the argument that Google was not aware of the content being hosted on the search engine and its subsidiary companies did not hold ground.

Rai’s counsel also pointed out that the company had been removing the content on case-by-case basis as it kept a ‘Transparency Report’. The report, which he said was an account of requests received by Google to remove content, “clearly shows what the company chooses and did not choose to do about such requests”. He added that at as per the Act, if a company got to know by itself or by an outside source that an “objectionable content” had been posted on its website, it should remove it and that Google was guilty of “illegal omission” as it did not remove some content which it knew through various sources had been posted on its website.

In the case against Facebook, Hariharan argued that the definition of ‘due diligence’ that Internet companies were required to put in should be widened since the “damage” which some “objectionable content” could do “cannot be quantified”.

Rai, who runs a Hindi and Urdu daily called Akbari from Noida, had filed the petition against 21 social networking sites in the trial court, against which Facebook and Google appealed in the HC on 11 January.

The trial court had on 13 January asked the executives of the 21 social networking sites, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo India and Microsoft, to appear personally on 13 March in the criminal case against them for posting “objectionable content” under charges that include “promoting enmity between groups” and “deliberate malicious acts intended to outrage”. The move came after the Central government’s nod to prosecute the executives.

Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar had directed the government to issue summons to the 10 companies like YouTube, Google, Yahoo, etc. who had submitted before the court that they were headquartered abroad through the Ministry of External Affairs.

According to Rai’s complaint, the alleged contents on these sites were obscene and might lead to “creation of obscene books, pamphlets, papers which can easily be downloaded from these social networking websites affecting the minds of children, were harmful for social harmony and could lead to increase in crime against women also”.

The next hearing will be held on 14 February, when Google and Facebook are expected to present their arguments.

Tehelka, 2 February, 2012, http://www.tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=Ws020212SOCIAL_MEDIA.asp


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close