Google Search not part of India’s new IT rules, says the company

iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-

While Google along with the rest of the big techs operating in India, complied with the latest IT rules for digital media, it was revealed that ‘Google Search’ will not be a part of the deal.

The Alphabet Inc.-owned company told the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, June 1, urging it to set aside a single-judge order which applied the rules on the company while dealing with an issue related to the removal of offending content from the internet.

The judge’s decision had come on a matter wherein a woman’s photos were uploading on a porn site by some miscreants.

Despite court orders, the content could not be removed in entirety from the World Wide Web and “errant parties merrily continued” to repost and redirect the same to other sites.

A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice to the Centre, the Delhi government, Internet Service Providers Association of India, Facebook, the pornographic site, and the woman—on whose plea the single judge’s ruling had come—and sought their responses to Google’s plea by July 25.

The court also said that it was not going to issue any interim order at this stage.

Google has contended that the single judge, in his April 20 judgement, “mischaracterized” its search engine as a ‘social media intermediary’ or ‘significant social media intermediary’ as provided under the new rules.

“The single judge has misinterpreted and misapplied the New Rules 2021 to the appellant’s search engine. Additionally, the single judge has conflated various sections of the IT  Act and separate rules prescribed thereunder, and has passed template orders combining all such offences and provisions, which is bad in law,” it has said in its appeal against the April 20 judgement.