The portal’s chairman and an Intel executive are among those who
have been been summoned to appear before a court hearing on 30th
December for “giving access to pornographic material.”
Rediff.com is said to be India’s leading portal. A law student
made a complaint about getting “free and easy” access on the portal
to material which is illegal in the country. The complaint led to a
police enquiry which concluded that the search engine did not
create objectionable material and acknowledged that it was a search
engine’s nature to gave access to everything on the internet.
However, a judge felt that there was enough evidence against the
company for its directors to stand trial, partly on the grounds
that rival sites succeed in filtering sex-related material.
The case is similar to one in Germany in 1998 when Compuserve’s
managing director was sentenced to two years imprisonment because
the ISP unknowingly hosted child pornography. The case was
overturned on appeal.
