Search Engines Like Google Cannot Claim To Have No Control Over Content: Kerala HC

Search engines such as Google cannot claim to be mere intermediaries with no control over the content that appears in search results, the Kerala High Court has reportedly said.

A division bench of Justices Muahmed Mustaque and Shoba Annamma Eapen said this in a judgment on the right to be forgotten and the manner in which it applies to publication of court judgments and proceedings in the absence of any specific legislation.

“We cannot hold that Google is content-blind to the publications made online, can they allow any prohibited nature of content to appear online? For example, paedophilic content,” the bench was quoted as saying in media reports.

It is quite possible for Google to identify the nature of the content and remove the same, especially in the era of artificial intelligence (AI), the bench opined.

This comes at a time when the government is planning to classify various online intermediaries such as social media platforms, ecommerce, and fact-checking portals as different categories and come out with specific regulations for each of these categories under Digital India Act.

With the upcoming Bill, the government is also looking at a departure from the long-standing concept of ‘intermediaries’. The idea of intermediaries was first introduced as part of the new IT Rules specifically for social media platforms, as the original IT Act, 2000 finds no mention of intermediaries.

Google took down a total of 598,732 content pieces/URLs in India via automatic detection and complaints received from users in October. Of the total, it proactively removed 86,961 content pieces to prevent the dissemination of harmful content including child sexual abuse and violent extremist content.

The judgement comes at a time when the government is trying to regulate big tech players. The year 2022 has been one of their toughest yet in India with large fines, court cases, and talks of new regulations.

Earlier this year, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) imposed a penalty of INR 1,337.76 Cr on Google for abusing its dominant position in Android market, while another penalty of INR 936.44 Cr was slapped for the tech giant’s anti-competitive Play Store policies. Google has approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) to challenge the INR 1,337.76 Cr market penalty.

A Google spokesperson said that the tech giant believes the CCI penalty is a significant setback for its Indian users and businesses who trust Android’s security features.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has urged the Union government to introduce a new digital competition law to reign in big tech players. In a report tabled in the Parliament, the committee suggested setting up of specialised Digital Markets units within the CCI to closely monitor big tech players and adjudicate on digital market cases.