Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are capable of blocking all contents infringing Indian laws, including those relating to pre-natal sex determination technologies, claims the Union Govt in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court

The Union Government on Friday informed the Supreme Court through an affidavit that search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were capable of blocking all contents infringing Indian laws, including those relating to pre-natal sex determination technologies.

The affidavit has been filed in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by Sabu Mathew George, who said the search engines violated Indian laws by displaying pre-natal sex determination ads.

In its affidavit, the Ministry of Communications and Technology has stated that the “search engines have the relevant technology and deep-domain knowledge and expertise to block/filter the words/phrases/expressions and sponsored links, which are violative of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act.” The Act prohibits determination of the sex of a foetus.

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The Ministry contended that the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were intermediaries, as defined under the Information Technology Act, and hence they had statutory obligations to perform due diligence and block all contents that breached Indian laws.

It pointed out that the search engines used an algorithm to rank search results on web pages and that it was used as a marketing technique for the entities to gain higher page ranking against a key word search.

Since there was a limited technical know-how in the country to decode such algorithm and disable search of contentious key words, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology found it difficult to block the information based on the key word search results, which could include unlawful information.

“Such blocking/filtering on keywords or advertisements can be effectively and regularly done only by the search engines as they have access to their respective mathematical algorithms all the time,” claimed the ministry. The Ministry has further contended in its affidavit that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft should be asked by the court to provide details of measures adopted by them to block keywords and sponsored links violative of the PC-PNDT Act.

The PIL is likely to come up for hearing before the Apex Court shortly.