These stories are becoming more common as Internet companies operate under the laws of many counties.
In February A Moroccan man was arrested for pretending to be the Moroccan king’s younger brother, Prince Moulay Rachid, on Facebook. Facebook complied with Morrocca information requests about the man, leading to his arrest. The man was granted a royal pardon after his sentencing, and was out of jail by mid March.
Today we’re hearing of another arrest, this time in India. 22-year-old IT professional Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid. His crime was writing in an orkut community named “I hate Sonia Gandhi.” Sonia Gandhi is a prominent politician in India.
Vaid was charged under section 292 of Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act because he created a profile and then posted content in vulgar language about Sonia Gandhi in the community.
During investigations, the cyber crime cell of Pune police communicated with Google (which owns Orkut) seeking details about the man who formed this forum and circulated the obscene content. It was known that the vulgar message about Sonia Gandhi was circulated through an email address – Rahulvaidindia@gmail.com . The owner of the email id Rahul Vaid was traced, using information supplied by Google, to Chakarpur in Gurgaon city of Haryana.
He was then charged under section 292 of Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act because he created a profile and then posted content in vulgar language about Sonia Gandhi in the community. If he’s convicted, he can be imprisoned for up to five years and may have to pay a fine up to Rs one lakh.
This is an issue that needs to be addressed everywhere, but the hot spots right now are areas where extreme laws make what would be legitimate actions in the US or Europe into fairly serious crimes in their jurisdictions. Our companies have to decide if they’ll defy the law and take the consequences. On the upside, users will flock to them knowing their data is secure.
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Local laws should be respected, lest the societies are in chaos.
Local laws aside, Google is quickly replacing Microsoft as the company that is willing to sell it’s soul to make a buck. What will they do next?
is this article suggesting that companies from certain cultures should be arrogant enough to defy another countries laws?!!!! If so this is a shockingly poor analysis. Google et all should be supported for supporting local law enforcement. If you dont like the law being applied raise the issue with the government not google!
This is a threat to freedom of expression…
whatever happened to the fundamental rights we had in india!
Comparing Google’s actions in complying with the laws in a democracy and in an one-party country is a fallacy. As Dan said, if you have issues with the local laws take them up with the country, not the company. Why does the US even have trade relations with China? Google is not the only one to blame.
That aside, being an Indian, let me also put some of the things into perspective. As the original article points out, the Community owner and other members were not prosecuted because expressing personal political opinion in India is still provided enough freedom. The arrested person created a profile and wrote thinsg on Sonia Gandhi’s name which makes it very easy to prove that his intention was solely to defame a person. Trust me, even if not as much as the West, India does provide some protection to political and social parody. This does not seem such a thing though. Being the leader of the curent Government, she has far more verbose crtitics in politics than this confused young man. Had it been a case of the state overbearing on an innocent political commentator, a lot of voices would have been heard by now.
Agree with 1 +3. You wouldn’t stand for foreign countries entering the US and purposely breaking local laws, why would you advocate Google and others doing it elsewhere.
Further we aren’t talking about some tinpot dictatorship here, India is the worlds largest democracy, an upstanding member of the Commonwealth, and certainly a large repository for global investment and outsourcing. To suggest that India is one of the “hot spots right now [with] extreme laws” is just bizarre .
If someone threatened the President of the United States on the web how quickly would they be arrested? American censorship is extreme to the rest of the world (million dollar fines for a nipple for example), but any country is entitled to its own local laws (particularly in a democracy), India has its own censorship standards created by a democratically elected Government: because I don’t agree with them doesn’t give me the right to impose my views on another country, and all Google did was comply with local laws. Do no evil can also mean break no laws, least that’s the way I was raised.
What the hell. Big Brother! These companies should comply only with local laws that don’t go against the declaration of human rights.
THe comments were “vulgar,” not a threat to her safety.
I really hate Michael Arrington…
Now I am going to run away to make sure I wont be arrested
Whatever, Google hast lost for me.
I’ll stop using it wherever I can. (Note: this has already been very hard in the past and is getting harder every month - a very bad sign…)
NO ONE should have the right to track you down, and for Google to assist in that is really disappointing.
If the government can’t do it, then they shouldn’t come crying to Google for some help.
This makes me worried now. What if some “IMPORTANT PERSON” asked Google to track me down.
Michael
so the law is stupid, so are many American laws, tell me why companies should disobey laws in other places but not in your own backyard?
I thought Google’s motto is “don’t be evil”….this is pure evil to have participated in this. I’m disappointed that the Indian govt can spend the time to track down this blogger when it has bigger issues to deal with.
Sticks N’ Stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me? I guess that don’t apply to politicians.
as much as i adore shadowrun, it’s not yet the corporation’s place to create or destroy law in a direct fashion. the discretion doesn’t come in choosing which laws in a country you want to follow, but in choosing in which countries you want to operate.
Sweet
Duncan Vs Mike …….
Totally agree with Duncan. Michael, you’re out to lunch on this one.
I think the whole conversation boils down to the definition of word “evil”, the way Google wants to define it .
May be Google could dedicate a blog post trying to elaborately define the word “evil” .
I guess that would help purists from going berserk about Google’s alleged non-adherence to the “Don’t be evil” motto.
Duncan, you make very good points about how e.g. US laws may also result in jail time for certain speech. One thing though: any person or company *must* think about and reflect the laws they decide to respect. Otherwise, you cannot use civil disobedience where necessary, which can lead to great disaster (and did, throughout history). Does that mean the foreign law makers are less responsible? No, they’re *more* responsible — but that still won’t take away your individual responsibility for civil disobedience when you see it necessary. And “take it to the other country” misses that Google is a US-based company. Whether disobedience in this specific case would be justified is a completely different issue, of course.
What would interest me though is what exactly Google disclosed, as it’s not discussed here so far. You can look up this person’s profile on Orkut, it’s public, he uses his full name, location, interests, several email addresses (including those using full names) etc. The phrasing which Mike quotes from the article, “It was known that the vulgar message about Sonia Gandhi was circulated through an email address – Rahulvaidindia@gmail.com” could mean anything it seems, it certainly does not equal “Google disclosed this email address, which was previously private” (though it could mean that as well).
India Times has a bit more, suggesting (but not making it 100% clear — I’ve also asked Google, though they rarely reply on such matters):
“[Netaji Shinde, police] said that the police had first asked Google to provide the IP address of the person who posted the message. They learnt that the accused was connected to the net through Bharati Airtel and Sify Internet in Chennai.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.....049971.cms
It would be a total disaster if we ended up with international MegaCorps that considered themselves above the law. Evil or not; nobody is above the law and that is what society is based on.
I think it is a very dangerous road to go down if we are to expect that corporate slogans somehow are more important.
Companies should not participate in markets that do not allow them to live within their moral boundaries. It’s the only way we can put pressure on nations who do not live up to foundation principles like freedom of speech.
Get with the program! Our government is over extended and toothless. It is up to us as a society to put our money behind our ideals. Will this get me arrested … not today…. play into this and some day it will.
@Duncan: they should respect human rights first.
I fastforwarded through the comments, so don’t be upset if my comment is to general.
Google (and other companies) shouldn’t assist governments enforcing moraly dubious laws. That has nothing to do with being above the law. It’s all about moral courage which should be used by everyone and especially by influential companies.
Companies like Google have the influence and capital [and they have every right (and the moral obligation]) to choose their jurisdiction accordingly (in jurisdictions with strong data protection laws) in order to be in the position to say governments -fuck you- if they are trying to prosecute people makeing use of free speach.
it’s not all about hacking software - its about hacking the law (hack is not meant in the negative way).
damn. companies hack the law every day. holding companies are incorporated in ireland, merely for tax reasons (in order to allow companies to say to goverments where there subsidiary companys are located -fuck you- if they want to tax income of the ireland holding).
the thing called “public responsibilty” isn’t limited to saving the enviroment! public responsibility also means hacking the law at it’s best in order to protect user data.
just my two cents.
Okay I hit enter to fast sorry…. Tak amoment and remember how people like us put pressure on companies who did business in South Africa under Apartheid. It started small and ended playing a major role in the liberation of a people.
Gov’t played a part yes but the economic pressure placed on companies by us gave the gov’t the power it needed to act! Is this different? I don’t think so.
@18 : Forgot to mention that I am one among those purists.
Duncan nailed it in comment #7.
Indian company, American poster says he wants to see the president dead. Should the Indian company give him up? Certainly not illegal to say that in India, so why should they? Oh, you say, “that’s different”.
Nice title
If they’ll do it there…they’ll do it here.
Sad day for google.
The funny thing being that the policeman who may have booked this poor guy for these said infractions may have little or No knowledge of what he actually did..
May i remind you that its the same Indian police that during a piracy raid, once confiscated the monitors leaving behind the CPUs and stapled Floppy drives to the FIR report in the register as evidence.. oh brother.
Someone needs to learn to proof read…
Duncan according to you, complying to the Nazi regime (for example) is OK as long as it is a democracy (as the regime was or started) and a law (Law was created by people, not always smart ones). This is bullshit, and you should know better than that. There are some basic moral laws which every country should comply (but this is really not the case).
The US as you imply will not go directly to Google, but they will have other protocols (not neccisarly better but at least something) to get this data if there a real concern not just an empty “threat”. (and not a stupid political prosecution)
Google did it again - be no evil - (just be - assholes)
The 2 sections under which he has been arrested deal with obscenity. He has not been arrested for what he said but rather the language that he used to say it. So it is not an attack on free speech. You can read my views on the topic at
http://binaryday.com/2008/05/1.....ee-speech/
With the way things are going with Google, I think they should start sharing their databases with CIA and other Intelligence agencies. They already scan our mails, they monitor the keywords we type, they share the information with the governments. I am hereby using Yahoo as my default search from now on.
Kill me if I’m wrong and ignorant, but doesn’t orkut have the option of reporting abuse whereby which you can inform google about possible impersonation, vulgarity etc. I’ve done that a few times and gotten a number of profiles and communities blocked. What was the need of lodging an FIR?
Just because all this had political backing, the police swung into action for no good reason. Women get raped and the police doesn’t even bother to move. Husbands and boyfriends publicly release intimate sex tapes and the police takes no action. I won’t say google is evil, I think the Indian Police is evil. Yes, it is. They are by far the most useless part of the government machinery in our country.
If someone writes something about the president of the political party that is at the centre, you go and arrest the poor soul? Insane. As Duncan said, Google has no choice but to obey the local laws. But its the local laws that are stupid. Had they spent all this time and all the resources in tracking down the terrorists who sent the emails after the Jaipur blasts, the whole country would have been a safer place.
Yes, I am a proud Indian, but it pains me to see such apparent abuse of power and muscle.
The obey and assist in enforcing local laws arguments are complete total bullshit and a good example of the commercialization of the internet to its detriment. The net was built in america by americans. Its natural that the foundation of its operation would reflect Local American law. The internet is the ultimate form of freedom of expresssion because everything on the net consists of expression in various forms. The correct view to look at this, is that if the local govornment is not compfortable with its citizens participating in an anonymous environment of free expresssion its that governments obligation to keep them out. The problem of course is that google wants the money, and to get it, it will pander. If there were no commercial interest, there would be no incentive for google to cooperate.
Too bad, he broke the law. Google assists in many cases in the US where people use it to look up how to discreetly kill others or if they searched for child pornography. You may not like the law or the fact that Google assisted the government but they were right to do so. You can take the “they should have a moral obligation” road all you want but get off your high horse. Everyone has to follow the rules.
@35
Zero was invented by the Indians. Chinese invented gunpowder. Stop using them.
I feel Indian politicians are Hypocraites…
freedom of speech is part of democracy!!
By publishing this news in a big way ..they are sending across a message that “dont mess up with politicians..you will regrate it for the entire life”
Life of this poor guy is messed up now…he was made a Guinea pig in all this.
OMG..
worse than Al Gore alledgedly saying He invented the Internet…
Arrington> Our companies have to decide if they’ll defy the law and take the consequence.
Not respecting the local laws is American Imperialism.
What does it lead to? Iraq — 300,000 killed.
Where does is come from: overzealous Christian immigrants being the early immigrants into the US.
Nice pic of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
Breaking… http://TinyURL.com is down right now.
He might have gotten away with ‘violent’ comments as compared to ‘vulgar’ stuff. Call it mentality or whatever but you just don’t call women names in India.
And off course this is gonna weigh even heavier on blog minds in India talking about politics and stuff. Express yourself little bit out of line and go to jail.
Oh Geeze… Why are you writing this?
You know in some countries, they can throw techcrunch guys and this post in Jail for Blogging. For example, Syria, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cuba, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, and some countries. Techcrunch is most wanted list. :/
If you are Government reading expensive IP address. I’ve nothing do with this. I didn’t start this. I’m out of here.
Dear.
Sonia Gandhi, Captialist pigs, WASP government, and U.S. I have no interest reading with this. Oh one more thing. Please, stay away from my privacy act.
I didn’t write that report…
Google did the right thing, dealing with local laws…. but than again I disagree with those laws…
“On the upside, users will flock to them knowing their data is secure.”
Do you really think the AVERAGE user knows that Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid was ratted out by Google?
What the hell is going on with TechCrunch latey? Yes, we know that it caters to sexless geeks but the comments being made on a daily basis are so naive and out of touch with mainstream reality as to be laughable.
No AVERAGE user is going to flock away from Google or Yahoo or Facebook or any other service because of something like this. Not only don’t they know about it…THEY DON’T CARE!
Nice, Yahoo! did exactly the same thing and was raked over the coals and had to spend time in front of congress getting yelled at. When Google does it, half the people think it is perfectly fine. Whether complying with local laws is a good argument or not, the blind Google-love is dumb.
Since when is data that you put online anywhere secure? It’s not. Get used to it. Whether it’s google of the oh so privacy concerned Facebook, or myspace, or your gmail account or….
You want privacy? Get offline.
“You want privacy? Get offline.” Oh yeah, cause we have it there.
Anyway: Whatever your motto, no company has any excuse for this. Sure, websites operate globally and as such have to adhere to laws of individual countries if they wish to stay truly global, but when doing so is infringing what the civalised world recognises as basic human rights it is a different matter.