New Delhi: Lawyers for Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. explained their companies’ products worked to the Delhi high court in a case related to allegedly offensive online postings on Monday. The companies said they could not be held liable for a third party’s actions.
The companies had approached the Delhi high court last week in a bid to quash criminal proceedings against them following a private complaint alleging abetment in a criminal conspiracy of defamation, obscenity and incitement of hatred. The complaint was filed by journalist Vinay Rai in a magistrate’s court in the Capital in December.
“The search engine only takes you to the website,” Google’s lawyer, Neeraj Kishan Kaul, told justice Suresh Kait in the high court. “Then it is between you and the website. The offending material has nothing to do with Google. Regardless of Google, that offensive material will remain there. We have no control over it.”
Kaul illustrated his case with examples.
“If we use filters and block words like ‘virgin’ and ‘sex’ because someone finds them offensive, then many other genuine queries will also get blocked. Virgin Atlantic or references to genders of people will get blocked,” he said.
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Google and Facebook have told the Delhi high court they cannot be held liable for a third party’s actions. Mint’s Nikhil Kanekal says that means their tussle with the government over Internet content is set to continue
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Kaul said the “casual manner” in which summons were served upon his client and others “reflects a complete lack of understanding of this technology”. The companies were issued summons by the lower court on Friday.
He also criticized the lower court for summoning his US-based clients to the Patiala House complex in connection with the criminal complaint, saying this raised questions about freedom of speech and expression. He attributed “ulterior motives” to Rai’s complaint against the Web companies and said there was “no application of mind” in the government issuing a sanction for prosecution. The department of information technology has allowed Rai to prosecute the companies on the government’s behalf.
Kaul didn’t have an answer to one of justice Kait’s questions: “What action have they (Google) taken (since the negotiations began with the government in September)?” This was with reference to talks between the Web companies and the information technology ministry between September and December.
Another contention that Google India’s activities were restricted to advertising was questioned by Rai’s lawyer Hariharan. Kaul had told the court that his client, Google India, didn’t operate the search engine or the blogging software, which was US-based Google’s domain.
Using the memorandum of association, Hariharan argued that since Google India was a fully owned subsidiary of Google Inc., it could be held responsible for content-related issues as well.
Separately, a senior official told Mint that the government was capable of shutting down Google and Facebook within half an hour of receiving orders from a court. The official, who did not want to be identified, added that such a move would impose a blanket clampdown on all services provided by a Web company as the government’s technology could not distinguish between various programmes that it offered such as chat services or social media.
nikhil.k@livemint.com