ess Trust of India / Mumbai/Aurangabad October 10, 2006
| The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court has directed the Maharashtra government to issue a notice to Google for alleged spread of hatred about India in its social network service Orkut. The order was issued by Justice A P Deshpande and Justice R M Borde yesterday in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by local advocate Yugant R Marlapalle. Orkut is an online community that conects people through a network of friends. A picture of a burning national tri-colour has been put on www.orkut.com, and a community "We Hate India" has been created on the site, the petition said. The petition has also appealed to the government to appoint a controller under the Information Technology Act-2000 to regulate all such communities being in operation on the Internet. The next hearing in the case is scheduled after six weeks. Reaction to the High Court order, a Google spokesperson said: "Orkut is not based in India. It's an open community. However, as its owner, we govern the community with our terms of service, which strictly prohibit `hate speech' and 'violence' among other things. |
| "Orkut is a community of 'trusted' users since only those who are invited can join it. Besides, it has standards and tools whereby users can report news as bogus. We also heavily rely on users to report such acts. |
| "In this case, Google will review and take appropriate action (removal in this case)." |
