New IT rules: Google says law not applicable to search engines, Delhi HC seeks Centre’s stand

By LE Desk

New Delhi, June 2, 2021: India’s new intermediary rules are not applicable to Google search engines, the tech company told the Delhi High Court today.

It has urged the court to set aside a single-judge order that applied the norms on the company while dealing with an issue related to the removal of offending content from the internet.

“The single judge has misinterpreted and misapplied the New Rules 2021 to the appellant’s search engine,” Google said in its appeal, as reported by Mint.

“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 added.

The single judge’s decision had come while dealing with a matter in which a woman’s photographs were uploaded on a pornographic website 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 re-post and redirect the same to other sites.

Google said that the 20 April order “mischaracterised” its search engine as a ‘social media intermediary’ or ‘significant social media intermediary’ as provided under the new rules.

In view of this, a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice to the Centre, 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 25 July, the Mint reported.

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

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai had recently said that the company will comply with the new IT rules.

According to a report in the Economic Times, Pichai said the company’s local teams are holding talks with the government, but it will comply with local laws.

He also said the company will continue to publish its transparency reports, which include data on the legal information requests it gets from governments.

The new Intermediary Rules were announced by India on 25 February, with the government companies only three months to comply.

The rules require companies like Google to hire Indian citizens in key compliance roles, respond to legal information requests within 36 hours, and trace texts, posts or tweets to the first originator within the country.

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/new-it-rules-google-say-law-not-applicable-to-search-engines-delhi-hc-seeks-centre-s-stand-11622612788775.html