Supreme Court slams Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for sex selection kit ads

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday slammed search engines Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for failing to keep out ads selling sex selection kits, and asked the Central government and the intermediaries to immediately come up with technical solutions to prevent such ads from popping up during routine searches.

A bench, comprising Justices Dipak Misra and R. Banumathi, in their harsh observations accused these intermediaries of having no respect for Indian law which bans sex determination tests and kits facilitating it. Advertising them is also a penal offence.

Sex determination is an offence in India, as the country attempts to battle high female feticide rates. But it may not be so elsewhere.

“You have to do something about this (such ads on search engines). This has become a social evil,” Justice Mishra observed. “You have to abide by the law. You can’t say that you are not technically equipped. If you say you are, ‘get out of the market,” Justice Mishra said. Justice Mishra then directed the government, which was represented by Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, to immediately convene a meeting of technological experts from both sides on ways and means to keep off such ads from search engines.

Counsels for the intermediaries tried to resist the court order, insisting that it was not technologically feasible to block all key words involving such ads as it would inadvertently block out any content remotely connected to such words.

Senior advocate CA Sundaram, appearing for Google, said that as soon as any such ad pops up, the intermediary blocks it, but it was impossible to completely prevent them from coming up.