Web censorship: Delhi court drops Google India, 7 others from lawsuit

Delhi court has removed names of Google India and seven others from a lawsuit in which they were accused of hosting objectionable content on their websites. Administrative civil judge (ACJ) Praveen Singh said that no case was made out against Google India, which had earlier contended that it did not run any social networking website and that it was a software development company running as Google Inc.'s subsidiary.

Other names dropped from the lawsuit are Exbii, IMC India, My Lot, Shyni Blog, Topix, Zombie Time and Broadreader. The other major names that are still a defendant in the suit are Facebook India and its parent company based in the U.S. Two other technology majors Yahoo and Microsoft were recently dropped from the case.

Google India's removal from the lawsuit is likely to relieve the Internet companies locked in web censorship row, which came to light December last year after the court issued summons to the Internet companies over the “anti-religious” or “anti-social” content. The Indian government has previously sought a monitoring mechanism to filter online content, though it maintains it did not want to impose a “censorship” on the Internet.

However, the Internet companies have been reluctant to bring in such mechanism. Google recently said that banning or monitoring online content would breach the fundamental right of speech and expression guaranteed by the country's constitution.



Also read,

Delhi HC dismisses charges against Microsoft India

Delhi court to hear case against Google, others on May 23

Yahoo India dropped from objectionable content case

