Yahoo India received a major relief when a Delhi court turned down case against the Internet company for allegedly hosting offensive content on its site. The court also penalised the complainant for dragging the company in the lawsuit along with other social networking sites. The development comes a week after the court dismissed summons against Yahoo in a separate criminal lawsuit.
More than 20 Internet companies including Google are facing both civil and criminal lawsuit in the country for allegedly hosting obscene content on their websites. The Internet companies have been asked by the court and government to set up a monitoring mechanism for online content. Google initially opposed the calls for monitoring content but later said it had removed the objectionable content. Last day, Google told the Delhi court that imposing a blanket ban or monitoring online content breached the fundamental right to expression of speech guaranteed by the Indian constitution. Last week, Microsoft was also dropped from a civil case in Delhi after it was found that evidence of objectionable content produced by the complainant did not have content from Microsoft sites.
The court order comes amid a raging controversy over web censorship, which came to light after Union minister Kapil Sibal had asked the social networking sites to “screen” the content.