Google India Faces Defamation Suit

Bombay High Court has ordered Google to disclose the identity of a blogger who allegedly had criticized a Mumbai based construction company. The judgment has come in pursuance of a suit filed by Mumbai-based Gremach Infrastructure Equipments & Projects Ltd. Appellant in the plea had demanded for Google’s discloser of the name of the person who had criticized them using Google'sblogging service.

Now, if Google does not disclose the name, it could face the charge of defamation. Incidentally, blogger.com offers a facility to a blogger to blog without disclosing real identity. And, in the given case the blogger had used the name ‘Toxic Writer’ and had criticized the said company. Now, the Bombay High Court has asked Google to present the blog written on February 26.

The court observed that there is merit in the contention, and on the basis of the article put up by the defendant on the blog site defamation is apparent. The court further ordered to defendant to reveal the identity of the blogger within four weeks of the order.

My Comment:

This is an absolute case of defamation but based on the definition of the defamation all the conditions of defamation should be met for the court to accept this as defamation. Regardless of the presence of the defamation conditions, what I'm willing to focus here is not the defamation itself but emphasis on role of third parties involved in such issues. As you see here, even the ISP or the facilitator (Google India) is responsible to control and monitor the content of the virtual space it has given to its subscribers/members.

Source: http://www.india-server.com/news/google-india-faces-defamation-suit-3084.html