Hit Pause On The Evil Button: Google Assists In Arrest Of Indian Man

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.

The net was built in america by americans. Its natural that the foundation of its operation would reflect Local American law.

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.

Companies absolutely should resist local laws, where such laws are b.s. Resistance is democracy in action; that’s how America started. Fighting b.s. is the only way to stop b.s. from taking over the world.

Activisim. Every second. It’s the only way mankind will ever eventually know peace. Google is not immune. You are not immune. I am not immune. Refuse and Resist.

I’m sorry that you have no privacy offline Rob. I know I do.

Is India not part of the “civilized world”? Plenty of the civilized world doesn’t agree on what constitutes basic human rights. You and I think that the west has a higher and more valid concept of human rights, but much of the rest of the world would not agree. That’s why this is an issue. Whose definition of human rights do you operate by?

Google has excellently done its task…..

Duncan & Michael,

Apparently, some companies do routinely flaunt American laws on American soil. Americans by and large don’t seem to care much about it, unless it relates to our health (and even, Wal*mart shoppers still enjoy a good deal or two).

Take DeBeers for example — illegal cartel, blood diamonds, CEO subject to detention, etc.. We still buy diamonds and hold them like they’re worth something. And the company can even run ads on our networks (while those same networks routinely reject political ads that go against their interests).

I think we should get our definition of who and what is ‘evil’ down first before we go criticizing Google for allegedly going against their self-selected ‘mantra’ whenever they do something we might wish they didn’t. There are a thousand other company more worthy of our disdain that never see a word of outcry on the net. That’s hypocrisy for you.

Why on earth would a company disregard the laws of the country it is operating in to protect people who are just using them to commit crimes?

If a company does not want to respect local laws then it should not open up local offices. But that would be a silly sacrifice to make to protect criminals.

Criminals who use others to commit crimes are selfish - they are putting others at risk against their will to achieve goals that they know are illegal.

If the laws they are breaking are stupid laws, that is a totally separate issue that needs to be dealt with at an entirely separate level.

@Jim - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.....man_rights

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”

India is a member of the General Assembly, is it not?

Oh BTW, I never said I had no privacy offline. My point is just that the offline world very much mirrors the online one. As a nation(/s) we are under survellience.

Re: Human Rights declaration. I know what the declaration says and I’m aware that some of the general assembly member nations don’t make much of an effort to abide by it. This is exactly my point.

What I fail to see is how this make Google the bad guy? In other words, what Avi said in #55.

Do we even know if Google offered up any information? All we know is that:

“During investigations, the cyber crime cell of Pune police communicated with the Google company seeking details about the 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”

They communicated with Google - it’s entirely possible that Google rejected their request for information. Is it possible the email address, which contained his full name, was published in the forum for anyone to see?

india is a third world country with its own culture.

Duncan,

From my political beliefs, I will be happy that this kid got busted because from his utterances he appears to be a right wing Hindu fanatics (they have lots of hatred to Sonia Gandhi because she is the most powerful person in India but she was not born in India). Even though I love to see religious fanatics behind the bars, this is a case of human rights violation. India may be a democratic country but its law enforcement agencies are known for human rights violations. Protesting against them is not enforcing one country’s culture over other but rather following UN conventions on human rights. I am against Bush regime’s atrocities in US, I am against Chinese atrocities against its own citizens and, similarly, I am against such actions by Indian law enforcement agencies atrocities against its own citizens. You cannot blindly call this imposition of some culture over another country. Human rights is an universal culture. Condemning the violations of human rights is not an American culture. Period. It is an universal culture.

Hey guys, don’t forget no other country in the world is having freedom like India!

If you want to confirm come to India!

there are many laws in india that are stupid….police enforce them to make money

look at how many false dowry harassment cases are taken up by police in the name of saving women, but in real they harass families and make money

checkout http://www.498a.org

everyone should have freedom to say what they think, no matter where they live

@57 : Rob

All member nations have an equal representation in the GA - US and Britain are supposedly the most powerful nations in the world, then why all the bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan?

@61 : ac

Every country has its own culture and laws. Third world or whatever you might say doesn’t really make a difference.

@62 : Krish

Forming opinions about someone without proper investigation is foolishness. Hating Sonia Gandhi, Congress party or for that matter KFC doesn’t make you a “right wing hindu fanatic”!! I agree with you on one point, its about one’s rights. What wrong did this kid actually do? He expressed his opinion and it shouldn’t bother anyone if he is a hindu fanatic or not as long he did not endanger or put anything at risk. No country in the world has perfect Human Right laws - none. But busting someone over such a petty thing is what I feel is a little insane.

Both Duncan and Arrington have their own points and are right. My conclusion is, It wasn’t a threat to the politician’s safety and it is not wrong on Google’s part to comply with the law of the land. It is just plain stupidity on the part of the Indian Police, period. As I said before, the Indian Police is a joke.

Will Google hand over info of an American working in Morocco? That I’d like to know.

The guy posted using the email/screen name of rahulvaidindia@gmail.com. He is an Indian guy by the name of Rahul Vaid. Honestly… did they really need to go to Google to get this guy’s information? Seems like he already provided it in plain sight.

We are under dangerous survellience by private third party government and secret government…

I just like to say. I understand techcrunch is reponsible for vandal topic. I’m American citizen from east coast. I don’t support this type of offensive issue. I believe this is digusting & childish behavior. So, I’m writing this just protect my privacy rights. I wish Mrs. Sonia Gandhi wonderful success and wonderful health.

Also, I’m writing this… Because I want better access to world hotels & better business third party access from the world. My startup is not against India or anywhere else in the world. Forgive me, Mrs. Sonia .

Jimmy.

Forget my brother. He is bad man.

Be concern about me. I have worked IT field since the age 6. I have over 20 year experience on ASP.net, C#, PHP, Java, Python, CGI, Perl, Drupal, Ruby on Rails, MSSQL, Oracle, MySQL, Postgresql. Work extensive with Fortune 5000 company to implement big IT solutions.

I am seek for a blonde American woman 18-20 for marriage and H1B visa.

If interests, please contact to me.

Pradeep Krishnakumar Vaid
Banglore, India
Perfect Custom Solutions IT Ptv. Ltd.

re #69…., techcrunch needs a comments Best Of list.

I love India’s caste system. I wish we have one here in the U.S. I also like that fact that they’re so conservative, even protesting against valentine’s and calling it “a conspiracy to misguide the young people of our country.”

That’s coming from people from a country who fornicate like rabbits.

Today is really sad day for internet communities.If every ‘egoistic’ individual pursues such actions then it will be terrible to even to touch internet.

Where is “net neutrality”?strong laws should be defined to protect internet users rights.

@69
you oportunist moron.Why are you spamming here.Go to hell bastar*.Go post in porno sites.

Sonia Gandhi really had this coming… let’s be honest.

@Uthfull.. I really don’t see what the hell Iraq has to do with the point I was making. I’m certainly not trying to make out that Britain and America are some sort of great defenders of human rights and a shining example to the rest of the world, if you read what I said I think it’s clear I think the opposite.

I’ll restate my opinion. The right of freedom of thought and expression is in my opinion the most important of all human rights. Orwell displayed what a world without freedom of thought could be like in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Anyone who assists a government in taking this right away from it’s people is doing evil. Period.

BTW, lols at Duncan’s coming #7 - “Do no evil can also mean break no laws, least that’s the way I was raised.” That single line is so ridiculous it made me lose any respect for you I may have once had. The fact is, sometimes laws are evil and HAVE to be broken. Hell, two guys fucking was against the law here as little as 30-40 years ago. I personally wouldn’t consider those who broke that law evil. I’m sure Nazi Germany maybe had a few such laws. But if Google helped THEM, they’d just be complying with local law. Nothing wrong with that. Huh?

Some good news for young man.According to Indian Law expressing personal opinion is not a crime.I suppose it is in the other parts of the world as well.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.....049971.cms

you can learn a lot about india just from the comments …. good laughs

@77
hope you learned a lot about India (just by reading few TC comments)

@Rob:

What I was trying to say is being a member of the GA really means nothing. There are gross violations of human rights throughout the world, in every country; India being no exception. And I personally agree with you on the point about the right to freedom of expression. Gagging the guy in this case is totally foolish. But what I’m trying to say is that it is not Google does not become evil when it complies with the law. Do you become evil if you do not jump the traffic signal?

But again, I agree with you on the point of the evil laws. I have said before and I will say again, is not Google who is to be blamed here, its the Indian Police. Its not even the Law, its these caretakers of the law who twist and turn these laws and use them according to their own convenience.

Our views are quite similar Rob, just some minor differences here and there. You continue to voice yours and I’ll do the same. Its our right!

Cheers!

OK - while we are at India-bashing mode.. I have a word or two on Corruption.

Indian police/law enforcement are among the most corrupted in the world. I mean if a cop catches you without license or breaking signal… lets say the ticket is Rs 200, you simply pay Rs 100 to the cop and he ll not cut a ticket.. believe me in India.. almost everyone does it…

So India is a biggest/greatest whatever democracy.. but a loose LAW ENFORCEMENT screws everything up.. i mean in all aspects of life.. whether you are doing business or driving on road.. the guy who can PLAY with the system will do better… by system i mean the cop on the ground.. to lawyers to the politicians in senate.. eachone has a price..

PS: Arrington/TC, please protect my identity - I dont mean harm (yea i m scared now)

Indeed! And as such I’ll disagree with your point on the traffic signal. The point is - that is not an “evil” law! (unlike, in my opinion, the example I cited).

@77

…stop talking to yourself…it’s not a good sign

#64 Uthfull

I agree that one need not be a Hindu fanatic to hate Sonia Gandhi but there is definitely a 95% chance that he is one. I know enough about these Indian kids to make this guess. Just go and read the comments in Indian media to understand the shallowness of the so called educated Indian kids. India is the only country where Hindu religious fanatics have support from the so called educated classes, unlike Christianity and Islam where the fanaticism is mostly brewed among the illiterate masses. I battle these Hindu fanatics every day. Please don’t try to tell me that there is not even a slight chance that this kid is a Hindu fanatic. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter whether he is a Hindu fanatic or not, human rights is an universal value and not just the value of America (unless you are a Bush boot licker) or any other country.

#64 Uthfull

For heaven’s sake, he is from Pune (the hotbed of Hindu fanaticism). This itself is a good enough reason for my biased guess. Letz not try to cover up the prevalence of Hindu fanaticism among the so called educated masses while trying to highlight that human rights is an universal value.

I am not a lawyer applies here:-

A few points not raised by the media.
1. Under section 78 of IT act 2000 http://www.mit.gov.in/download/itbill2000.pdf , offenses under this act must not be investigated by an officer below the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of Police. Did the state police comply with it ?

2. Can the indian police legally seek private and confidential information from any company ? There is no such mention in the IT act of any such search, confistication and discovery of ‘non-public’ information in a non-public place by the police. The powers for discovery if any lie with the Cyber Appellate Tribunal ( or maybe the courts, high court and above) ?

3. Could this be a violation of section 72 of IT act dealing with breach of confidentiality and privacy. If the IP address of the subscriber wasn’t public information how could it have been disclosed to the police without any discovery order by a competent judicial authority ?

4. Section 67 reads something like this: “Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeal to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it”
Its quite debatable whether this section can be applied to what would probably qualify as protected speech(albeit in bad taste) in a free country ?

-Tarun

Google remind me of the West German Statsi. Always keeping track of what you doing and then selling you out to curry favor with despotic regimes just like the current one in India. The poor guy said “He hates her…” and with that rationale I think probably 50% of the US population will end in jail for saying that about US presidents.

I don’t blame the guy because this women(Sonia is the daughter of fascist father who was Mussolini’s right hand man) is in alliance with the Jihaidst. They keep killing 100s of Hindus and bombing their temples every week and she looks the other way. Plus this women is ruling the country via a proxy when she is not even an Indian citizen.

Plus it is funny you have many Jihadi trolls here(with fake Hindu names) blaming Hindus. It seems Hindus should keep quiet and keep getting butchered like the recent Jaipur bombing. Why because as per their expansionist ideology infidels lives are 1/64th of the Muslim lives. No wonder they don’t favor free speech.

I don’t think people will forget about companies that give data away even to officials. The data stored anywhere should be kept private untill a court decision “really” forcing a company to comply. The time will come when people will care whom to trust their data.

I don’t think it is the company’s job to protect a user’s free speech. Instead, we should be more concerned about the laws that are put in place (or lack there of) that allow the government to go to google, demanding user data.

Um someone was pretending to be a king’s brother… there are some crazy people out there. I would not want to be a part of the online community trying to control all of the wackos out there.. what they are saying etc. I understand that some countries have different laws and them wanting google to be involved to help catch the people that did wrong in their countries.. but it could just get completely out of control.

Yes, I know there are some advocates here suggested that some identity thefts should get different treatment if they live in a dictatorship country like Iran and Morocco, or a less advanced democratic country like India, even if those local laws are no different than those in the US.

“India is the worlds largest democracy, an upstanding member of the Commonwealth”

You write that as it means something? Screw the Queen and the British empire.

Mike you go ahead and give that to Canadian and British authorities.

I’m back in America now. Go pound sand losers.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/s.....-kiss.html

News flash, India is INSANE. Public kissing is a crime, like in middle school, but for grownups and forever, punishable by 3 months of jail time.

They behead people there for being late to work, and the minimum wage is non-existent for child labor.

But then again Riley compared them to Canada and the commonwealth, not the US, so maybe they are on par.

@91 Chris:

Kissing in India is considered to be a private act. Its just a matter of what your culture allows. Sex is hushed up here. Doesn’t make India insane in any way.

No beheading take place in India if I may correct. You must be referring to some isolated incident.

I again say, look at what the US has done to Iraq and Afghanistan just for its own selfish benefits. Look in your own backyard and only then comment my dear friend.

hhhmmmm …. wat to do … hands are tied !!!!

The more serious, more evil act was done a few months ago by Airtel, with help of Google.

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14555229

Airtel, a telecom company and Broadband provider in India, handed wrong information about an IP address police was looking for. As a result, police arrested an innocent guy and put him into jail for almost 2 months before they realized the mistake by Airtel.

I hate you Airtel.

why the hell Google giving away info. to local police??

Let’s boycott Orkut for the sake of god.

They have loose policies on protecting user data.We trusted Google but now we realized they are a ‘cop’.

Google should give information on pedophiles and terrorists not innocent people who expressed their opinions in a democratic way.

@ 64 I fully agree with your comments. You will find at least a thousand communities on orkut if not hundreds about “hatred” or “I hate X person”. The youth has the freedom of speech and the person who filed the complaint will be termed as a stupid guy if he isn’t successful in charging the person for defamation. This thing is NOT A BIG DEAL here.

@ 70 I don’t agree with you.. It’s the local parties which stage a ruckus against valentines day to attract votes from conservative sects of the various communities.. overall India has much more freedom than you would have in the US or any other country.. Just that if a girl goes naked here in her bikinis on the road, it would be termed as obscene, taboo and vulgar whereas in the US, its NOT a BIG DEAL though the laws forbid people to go completely naked. And even such protests are largely made by political parties to attract votes or create awareness about a political leader’s existence.

@ 92 Chris, We regard sex as sacred and not just a touch of body for the purpose of pleasure. I don’t think that is INSANE. So you better stop saying such ridiculous stuff. SHUT UP!

Would you be okay if your 9 year old kid starts having sex with another 9 year old female and the girl becomes pregnant? So you better SHUT YOUR MOUTH! we don’t want our kids to start smoking, drinking, have sex, smooching while they are still in school like your kids do while in school.

Indian kids are much intelligent than any kid in the world and that has been proven by many Indian kids across the world.

You know something, you’re INSANE. Get your head checked up before you defame India, my motherland.

Try posting a phrase like “I wish President Bush were dead” or “President Bush should be killed, I am just waiting for someone to do it” in a blog or forum in the US. It will not be long before the FBI comes knocking on your door. Many have been subject to such visits for exercising their choice of freedom of speech.

The US in many cases can be more totalitarian than many other governments when it comes to freedom of speech. This link provides a good example where the records of a dead investigative journalist are being sought http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04.....erson.html

The US is not different. The below link is a good example of the “so called” freedom of speech in America.

“The FBI has subpoenaed records related to the online sales of a teddy bear carrying the message “Bush Kills Arabs Dead,” apparently as part of a probe into who delivered one of the plush toys to the Michigan home of a federal magistrate, The Smoking Gun has learned.”

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/a.....bear1.html

Also freedom of speech comes with responsibility. Although intended as humor, this page about Fox shows how freedom of press can go astray: http://www.constructiveanarchy.....e_left.php

The Patriot Act and many other regulations in the US are designed to enforce far more harsh limitations than that in this article. The author should perhaps smell the coffee at home before trying to portray a biased analysis based on “I am more civilized and righteous than thou” thoughts.

Yes, there is much I personally disagree with in regulations in many countries, including the one I live in, but they are the laws of the land. Without them things fall to pieces very quickly. A foreign company taking a stand against the government will find itself very quickly out of that country and its exectives in legal hot water or jail. So it must evaluate whether it is better to operate within the limitations or not at all, there is no other choice. Lobbying against regulations is one thing, defying them just because the dont match your home country’s is wrong. Especially when the home country in this case in no way sets a good example.

@97

Hello retarded sir,please shut up this is not a place for patriotism.Nobody here interested in such a dumb debates.

update FYI : just picked this up from the local pune newspapers today.

The worst part of the whole thing is that after putting the man through his time in jail, the authorities now admit they got the wrong guy in based the address email orkut identity mapping they did.

~B

More you want to block content on internet the more it spreads out.Most people should be aware of it.

@ 97 Mr Mentally Retarded: this isn’t a place to abuse a country either.. so SHUT UP and get going..

India is my mother and I have every right to defend my country. If you don’t like it, you can go to hell.