Google guides cops to police Web 2.0 sites

Durgesh Gupta - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai
Search engine giant Google is working with cyber police in several Indian cities to monitor and weed out objectionable material from its online properties such as social networking site Orkut.

Although the firm hasn't yet covered the entire nation because it is logistically a difficult task, the company says it has trained policemen in most tier 1 and 2 cities. The police can use what is called a 'priority reporting tool', when they flag a video, a community or a scrap, it reaches Google faster for review compared to content flagged by any other user.

Google says efforts such as these are very much its own initiative. Orkut has been at the receiving end time and again, be it offensive content about Congress president Sonia Gandhi posted in a 'I hate Sonia Gandhi' community or derogatory comments on Maratha hero Chhatrapati Shivaji.

The popularity of the social networking site in the subcontinent had also encouraged people to create 'hate India' communities. While these have now been removed, 'hate Pakistan' and 'hate China' communities are now having their day in the sun.

It is difficult to ascertain whether or not some of these communities are politically motivated - just like there is a 'We hate Sonia Gandhi' community, there exists an 'I hate L K Advani' group in Orkut.

"There is no way to stop people from creating what they want. In YouTube, 12 hours of content is generated every minute. In Orkut, terabytes of information gets generated all the time. It is not humanly possible to go and look at every sentence that is being written." says Vinay Goel, country head, products, Google India.

Google, therefore, thought safeguards. "You don't want to stifle the free dom of speech and yet, ensure that people are working within legal boundaries, are within the sensitivities of that culture. So if you find something offensive, flag it. We will review it. We have very specific terms and conditions and if that is violated by the user, we will bring it up. This model has worked well," Goel says.

Google says that the police usually wouldn't get access to any private information about users beyond what is already there in the profile posted. However, if the company is required legally to divulge more information, it will have to do it. In the past, the firm had reportedly provided Mumbai police with the IP addresses of those misusing Orkut.