INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - OCTOBER 2006
THE MONTH THAT WAS...

HATE PAGE PUTS ORKUT IN SPOT

   In what could be a first, the Bombay High Court has ordered the Maharashtra government to initiate legal proceedings against Google for the allegedly ‘Hate India' campaign propagated on its social network service site Orkut.

   The Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the state government to issue notice to Google in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate Yugant R Marlapalle.

   A picture of a burning Tricolour bearing anti-India messages has been put on Orkut.com and a community ‘We Hate India' has been created on the site, the petition said.Google seems to have been taken a back by the development. “Like offline world, there are some people who may object to some thing in the online world too,”.

   According to him, Orkut is a public platform that relies heavily on its users to object to any content online. “We have, terms of service, which define the nature of content which can be exchanged through Orkut. Depending on our users recommendation, we examine the data. If the data doesn't comply with terms of Service, then we remove it from the online world,” he said.

   The state government, on the other hand, plans to rope in cyber cell of the police to initiate action as per the court order. “The cyber cell of the police is examining legal aspects of the issue,” an official from the legal department said.

Google's claim to fame is the Google search engine. There are products from the Google basket like Gmail, an email service with huge storage facilities, Google calendar, to organise events online and Orkut, a social networking site.

   Orkut, enables the user to meet friends — old and new — in the online world. An Orkut user can end up meeting his school friend or can also strike friendship with an unknown person.