Google sanitizes content to escape lawsuit

Google Inc., the U.S-based search engine giant informing a Delhi court that it has already stripped off its websites of all objectionable content comes in as a major update to the ongoing lawsuit filed against 21 social networking websites in the country. The search giant, while admitting to sanitize its website, maintained that it was fully aware of its responsibilities as a service provider and that the allegations against it of showing Indian culture poorly are false. Reports state that U.S-based, Google Inc. got down to sanitizing their websites after their Indian subsidiary, Google Inc. brought the issue to their notice. 

Facing the heat, with others

The report further stated that, "Seeking dismissal of civil suit, Google Inc said that the case against it was filed in complete disregard of immunity given to a service provider under the Information Technology Act for any third party content linked or hosted by it." Reportedly, Orkut and YouTube, too have filed written submissions in the court. The court had earlier issued an order, asking the accused websites to sanitize their websites of any content, be it in the form of images, text, videos, among other things, which had anti-religious tendencies, and asked the websites to file their compliance report on February 6th, informing the court.

Facebook India, too, like Google had announced a while back that they had sanitized their websites, too, following the court order and subsequently filed for their compliance report. Mid-last month, there were reports about the court making an exception for Google India and Facebook India, by allowing their reps to skip court hearings, and instead make their court hearings through their respective lawyers. This concession, however was only granted to Google India and Facebook India, and not the other 19 accused websites in the case.

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