Google says objectionable content removed from India service

US-based global internet giant Google today said it has removed some ''specific'' content from its Indian service, which were deemed objectionable by a district court here.

Google India has removed the objectionable content from its search results, YouTube video site, Blogger and the social networking site Orkut in order to comply with a New Delhi district court in a civil lawsuit.

"...we only removed specific content that was identified or was the subject of the court's order from local domains of Search, YT, Blogger and Orkut," a company spokesperson said in a statement.

"This step is in accordance with Google's long standing policy of responding to court orders," he said, while adding that "this is consistent with our long term policy and we've been very transparent about these actions even in the past - as also revealed in our transparency report."

Google reveals requests from various governments for removal of content on a period basic, generally twice a year, in the form of its Transparency Report.

As per these disclosures, Google received Indian government's requests for removal of 358 items from its services, including YouTube and Orkut, during the January-June period of 2011.

As many as 255 item removal requests during this period cited the government criticism as the reason, as per Google.

Google India, in its compliance report, had informed the court yesterday that it has removed certain webpages from the Internet.

The district court's orders stem from a civil suit filed against various internet companies, where it was alleged that the companies hosted content that could hurt religious sentiments.

The court, in an ex-parte order on December 20, 2011, had issued summons to 22 websites, including social networking platforms, asking them to remove "anti-religious" or "anti-social" content in the form of photographs, videos or text which might hurt religious sentiments.

Later, the court had set a deadline of February 6 for compliance.

There has been a raging controversy over monitoring of the content on Internet, especially for the websites depending on user generated contents.

The websites, which have been asked to remove objectionable contents, include Facebook India, Facebook, Google India Pvt Ltd, Orkut, Youtube, Blogspot, Microsoft India Pvt Ltd, Microsoft, Zombie Time, Exboii, Boardreader, IMC India, My Lot, Shyni Blog and Topix.