Google Aids Indian Goverment Censorship

An anonymous reader writes "Google's Orkut has made a deal to provide IP addresses of posters of content deemed objectionable by Bombay police. They object, among others, to posts against certain Indian personalities, young women admiring Indian mobsters, and, amazingly, "anti-Indian words" (!)."

Expectations

[towsonu2003]

Expect a similar move from the Turkish government [slashdot.org] soon.

Re:"Don't be evil"??

[1u3hr]

you want to play in India, you play by their rules. You can argue that India is doing the black, but Google is just playing by the rules.

What do you mean by "rules"? If you RTFA, it seems Google is coperating above and beyond the extent required by law. The police are congratulating them for not making them do any paperwork before handing over the IPs and other identifying details of anyone who posts anything deemed "offensive". No doubt Googel is coverd by its terms of sevice and such. But that's not the point.

Re:Business Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Businesses don't have morality, they have ethics.

No offense, but ethics is "a system of moral principles" [reference.com] (aka, a set of rules governing what proper conduct is). Ethical and moral are synonyms. It could just as easily long ago have been called business morals instead of business ethics.

Re:"Don't be evil"??

[homer_s]

The last line was not directed at your post specifically, but at the many other posts comparing India to China.

But I'd go further than you and say any censorship is bad.
Take you 'religious vilification laws' for example - how do you define a religion? Now you have got the govt involved in defining the word religion. Some idiot will come up with a new religion that worships the Kiwi bird (I can start such a religion in India within 10min) - now would everyone stop insulting Kiwis?

And what constitutes vilification or insult? What if I say 'Buddhists are nuts'? Is that vilification? How about 'Buddhists are misguided'? Where do you draw the line? We have a problem in India where evangelical Christians preach that anyone who does not believe in Christ will go to hell. There are a lot of Hindu groups (read: politicians nervous about elections) who say that this is an insult to Hindus.

About 'inciting crime' - what constitutes inciting? If you let a govt define such subjective things, they will use it to make criminals of everyone.

Generally, govt should just protect people and their property and not get involved in nebulous concepts like religion, culture, etc.

And oh, btw, get ready to worship the Kiwi overlords - they look like the one time to beat Aus in the WC.

Re:Criminal investigations should be allowed

[Canderel]

It seems to me that you all think that the Indian police are incompetent and evil. The way it's *supposed* to be is: Police = good guys. So helping police = good move. But we've all become cynical (probably with reason), and now helping police/governments = evil move. The real question is whether Google says in "Terms and Conditions" whether they are allowed to do it, and if they are, well, you "signed" it. This whole thing depends on what Google are willing to give, and what the Indian police are doing with the information. So from Google's point of view they are giving information (what their main aim is), what's being done with it is the Indian government's responsibility. Same as when you use Google to search for how to make a bomb... You're the evil one not them. As a side note... it says no-where that Google are getting paid for this, and I have no reason to believe they are.

Re:well

[XchristX]

Fair enough. Then it should be obvious even to a non-Indian why India is not tolerating rampant Indophobia any more than Germany or Israel does not tolerate anti-Semitism.

India is surrounded by rabidly totalitarian regimes that conducted government sponsored genocide of Hindu minorities in East Pakistan in 1971 (death toll estimates range from 1.5 million to 3 million, with 75% of the victims Hindus and 25% Bengali Muslim intellectuals), just like Nazi Germany did to Jews and Romanis and Homosexuals (the death toll was higher for the shoah/pojramos than the 1971 Bangladesh bloodbath of course, but the concept of targeted ethnic cleansing/genocide is the same in both cases) and why a rapidly developing but still struggling country like India is a little apprehensive about hate speech directed against Indians.

If you don't believe me then just drop by any Pakistani internet forum and see what they say about Indians there. The Nazi rhetoric of "Blut und Boden" or whatever pales in comparison to the rabidly genocidal streak of the more radical Pakistani Nationalists/Islamic Fundamentalists. Believe me I am not Godwinning when I say that the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and the Bangladeshi Nationalist Party in Bangladesh are no better than the Sturmabteilung or Einsatzgruppen (read about their rhetoric and violence against Pakistani/Bangladeshi Hindus , Qadiani Ahmadiyyas, Mohajirs etc.)

Re:"Don't be evil"??

[XchristX]

You should have stayed in India longer and travelled more. You'd see a wider cross section of the population that's quite religious.

Millions of Hindus goto Varanasi for pilgrimage every year.
Millions of Indian Muslims do Hajj at least once in their lifetimes.
Millions of Indian Christians goto the tomb of the Apostle Thomas in Chennai for pilgrimage.

Also, you should have seen Kerala, "God's own country". They have the cleanest cities in South Asia, as does Tamil Nadu and most places down South.

Generalizing about a country of a billion people is the first step towards becoming a bigot.

Re:Criminal investigations should be allowed

[swillden]

Same as when you use Google to search for how to make a bomb... You're the evil one not them.

It is not evil to search for how to make a bomb. It is not even evil to make a bomb, or to set off a bomb. What's evil is to set off a bomb where it will hurt people or their property.

Assuming you do it with appropriate precautions in appropriate places and times and with appropriate permissions (per local laws), making big booms is good, clean fun.