Sex determination to be blocked by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft in India
Search giants Google, Yahoo and Microsoft will make necessary changes to their search engines in India to block ads and information about sex determination.
The move came after the Supreme Court accused the search giants for showing ads banned India about sex determination. The government told the Supreme Court today that the search engines have enabled a system to block all information dealing with sex determination online in India. The system called auto block will help in stopping all information pertaining to sex determination including ads and tests.
The search giants have said that they managed to identify 22 key words, which includes ‘sex determination’ and anyone who is searching for these words will receive no information on the subject.
The Supreme Court on Monday, September 19, heard a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in which Google, Yahoo and other search engines have been made a party for allegedly putting up advertisements selling pre-natal sex determination kits.
"Can these search engines continue to violate the law? Is there nothing that can be done to completely stop them? Google, Microsoft, Yahoo can't continue doing the illegal activity in the name of being an intermediary," the top court had observed. It had also called on the Centre to come up with a memorandum to stop the "abuse". The government had held consultative meeting with the companies to reach a solution.
The PIL was filed by Sabu Mathew George, who sought the court's intervention to get the government to crack down on advertisement of sex-determination kits, tools and clinics on websites.
George has alleged that sex-determination ads and links were freely available on the search engines, defeating the purpose of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, enacted in 1994 to stop female foeticides and check the declining sex ratio in India. Prenatal sex determination was made illegal in India in 1994 to prevent sex-selective abortions.
