In the memo, Google said regulations on Internet companies "play a crucial role in determining how free a medium of communication the Internet will be for the world's peoples, especially the millions of Indians who are increasingly making use of it in their everyday lives."
Among other things, the rules require websites to remove objectionable content including anything "grossly harmful" or "harassing." They require Internet service providers and social-networking sites to offer terms-of-service agreements with users that bar certain types of content. The websites also are responsible for removing content that goes out of bounds within 36 hours of being notified by government authorities.
A spokesman for India's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said the agency conducted a thorough review of public comments on a draft of the rules. The spokesman said the agency will issue a "clarification" soon to address concerns free-speech advocates have raised in recent weeks.
A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the new rules.
Internet companies broadly see India as a potentially massive market. Estimates differ, but industry groups already say India is one of the world's top Internet markets, with a user base of between 80 million to 100 million people. In a study last year, boutique investment bank Caris & Co. predicted India will have 180 million to 200 million Internet users by 2015.
Google's under-the-radar lobbying effort in India offers a sharp contrast to the high-profile and public approach the company took in China last year when it protested censorship of it search service. Google wound up redirecting Chinese users to an uncensored version of its Web search in Hong Kong.
India presented a different situation. There isn't the same kind of outright censorship or widespread blocking of sites as in China, but companies like Google face demands from police and government authorities to remove content deemed offensive, such as material that disparages leading politicians or religious figures.
A person familiar with the company's thinking said Google was unhappy that the final Indian rules didn't address its concerns but believes the new regulatory framework is still an improvement from earlier, when it faced takedown requests with no specific guidelines on what content was considered out of bounds.
Apar Gupta, a New Delhi-based attorney and cyber law expert who submitted his own complaint about the draft rules, said the government made only "cursory changes" based on input from outside parties. "This wasn't an open, consultative process. The changes between the finalized version and the initial draft weren't explained," he said, and the final rules were quietly published on a government Web site with no announcement.
Google's Orkut social networking site had about 14 million visitors in March, making it India's sixth most popular site, according to ViziSense, a company that tracks online metrics in India. Facebook Inc.'s service is the third most visited site with 35.2 million users in March. A Facebook India spokeswoman couldn't be reached for comment.
Internet companies have made no public statements about the regulations thus far, but Google and some others submitted confidential comments on the draft rules in the weeks leading up to their enactment. The spokesman for India's communications ministry said the government would keep correspondence with companies confidential but that the companies were free to offer public feedback on the new rules.
Google's memo shows that the company sought changes aimed at limiting its potential liability for hosting objectionable content posted by third parties. For example, the company wanted to eliminate a section of the draft rules that outlawed specific categories of content and replace it with a more general ban on material that "violates any law for the time being in force." The final rules banned any material that is "grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous" as well as anything "ethnically objectionable" or "disparaging" or that "impersonate(s) another person."
The company argued that such specific categories are "too prescriptive" and may not be illegal under any Indian statute.
Google also said it was "troubled" by a provision that said an Internet company "shall not itself host or publish or edit or store" banned categories of content. Google argued that this wording could expose the company to liability for material posted by third parties, potentially causing it "great harm" and contradicting the Information Technology Act of 2008, the law on which the new regulations are based. Regulators slightly tweaked that provision but didn't strike it from the final rules.
Google sought to remove a provision in the rules that said an Internet company must take down objectionable content after "obtaining actual knowledge by itself" of the material or being notified by government authorities.
The company wanted to change the provision so that companies don't have responsibilities to decide what content is legal or illegal but rather need to respond to a written notice from "a court of law or other legally empowered public authority." The final rules made a minor tweak to the draft wording but didn't take Google's suggestion.
In its memo, also commended India for putting in place the 2008 law, saying it was "a step forward in advancing the cause of protecting the future of the Internet economy."
Source: WSJ.com