Google India in legal tangles

16 August 2008

Mumbai: Google's Indian subsidiary, Google India Private Limited, is facing legal charges over the way it does business in the country.

Google is facing defamation charges from a Mumbai-based firm, Gremach Infrastructure Equipments & Projects, for hosting a series of articles on its blog site that are effectively a ''hate'' campaign against the company's mines in Mozambique.

Additionally, the Supreme Court of India has sent notices to Google India on a petition seeking to block its search engine from promoting sex-selection kits. The same notice has also been sent to two other search companies and Google's competitors, Yahoo India and Microsoft Corporation (I) Private Limited.

In the defamation suit by Gremach, the company said an entire series of articles titled ''Toxic Writer'' were posted on Google's blogging site between January and February 2008. Gremach had acquired a 75 per cent stake in 11 coal mining licences in the African nation of Mozambique, in September 2007.

The articles posted could be best described as a hate campaign against the company. Reports suggest that the company first complained to the police, whose investigations came to a grinding halt when Google India refused to cooperate.

Thereafter, the company moved the Bombay high Court against Google India, asking for information about the blogger.