GOOGLE IT RULES
flated 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 judgment.
According to the template framed by the single judge, when such matters related to offending content come before a court and it is satisfied that an immediate redressal was required at the interim stage, it may issue a direction to the website where the objectional material is hosted to remove the same forthwith and maximum within 24 hours of receiving the judicial order.
“A direction should also be issued to the website or online platform on which the offending content is hosted to preserve all information and associated records relating to the offending content, so that evidence in relation to the offending content is not vitiated, at least for a period of 180 days or such longer period as the court may direct, for use in investigation,” the court said.
It also said a direction should be issued to the search engine(s) to disable access to the offending content by “de-indexing” and “dereferencing” it in their listed search results and the intermediary ought to comply with such a direction within 24 hours of receiving the same.
“The directions issued must also mandate the concerned intermediaries, whether websites/online platforms/search engine(s), to endeavour to employ pro-active monitoring by using automated tools, to identify and remove or disable access to any content which is exactly identical to the offending content that is subject matter of the court order,” it had said.
The single judge order had also said for a direction to remove or disable access to an offending content to be effective even within India, a search engine must block the search results throughout the world since no purpose would be served by issuing such an order if it has no realistic prospect of preventing irreparable harm to a litigant.
It also directed the police to ensure the offending content was removed and directions were also issued to search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, “to globally de-index and de-reference” the offending content from their search results.
It further stated that if an intermediary fails to fulfil the conditionalities and obligations cast upon it, it was liable to forfeit the exemption from liability available to it under the Information Technology (IT) Act.