Google has faced that the new IT rules in India for online publishers do not apply to its own search engine. And encouraged the Delhi High Court to cancel and order by a single judge. The judge applied the same IT rules to the search engine giant for dealing with an issue that involved removing derogatory content from the Internet.
The single judge came with the decision when dealing with a matter which involved a woman’s photographs being uploaded on a pornographic website. The court has ordered to remove the content completely from the internet, “offending parties merrily continued” to keep posting the images and redirect to other websites.
This order was issued by the Chief Justice D N Patel and the justice Jyoti Singh to the Delhi Government, Internet Service Providers Association of India, Facebook, the pornographic website and to the centre.
This order was issued by Chief Justice D N Patel and the justice Jyoti Singh to the Delhi Government, Internet Service Providers Association of India, Facebook, the pornographic website, and to the center. Google told the bench that it was not a publisher but a mediator for content on social media websites. The search engine giant looks for the removal of the order by a single judge which classified it as a social media mediator.
Other things Google said :
Google faced the single judge, in his 20 April judgment, “mistaken” its search engine as a “social media mediator” or “significant social media mediator” as provided under the new rules.
Google said in an appeal against the 20 April judgment that, “The single judge has misunderstood and misuse the new rules 2021 to the appellant’s search engine. Also, the single judge has consolidated various sections of the IT Act and separate rules ordered thereunder, and has passed template orders mixing all such offenses and provisions, which is bad in law.”
The single judge ordered a direction to incapacitate access to the displease content to be effective even in India. In the world, search engines like Google must block the search results. The direction would require search engines to “de-index” and “respect” listed search results of derogatory content. The mediator, which in this case would be Google, has to observe with such a direction within 24 hours of receiving the same.
Finally, the order tasked search engines to use automated tools which can be identified and disable access to offensive content farseeing. It further stated that if a mediator fails to fulfill the duty and conditions, it was “responsible to penalty the exception from liability available to it under the Information Technology (IT) Act.”
