Google issued notice for promoting sex selection via ads

By Khabrein.Info Correspondent,

ImageNew Delhi, Aug 14, 2008: Search engine giant Google has been issued notice for promoting sex selection technique via its ads in India.

This is the first time in India that the leading search engine company and advertisement firm has been sued for ads displayed on its website and through its Google Adsense programme across the globe.

Two other search giants have also been sued and India’s Supreme Court has issued notices to the three search engines.

Apex court besides the three search giants has issued notice to two ministries as well. It includes ministry of health and ministry of information and broadcasting.

Dr. Sabu Mathew George has asked the apex court to impose ban on the three leading search giants that he alleged were promoting techniques of sex selection.

In India female infanticide is rampant. It is very common and is not perceived as a sin. According to census statistics, "From 972 females for every 1,000 males in 1901 ... the gender imbalance has tilted to 929 females per 1,000 males.

India has battled for long to eradicate this heinous practice, but instead of making any improvement India's gender imbalance has worsened in recent years. Any progress toward halting infanticide, it seems, has been offset by a rise in sex-selective abortions.

Many say that development in technology has abetted the issue of abortion in the country. The ratio among children up to the age of 6 was 962 girls per 1,000 boys in 1981, but 20 years later the inequity was actually worse: 927 girls per 1,000 boys.

The three search engines are used by millions of internet users across the globe to search for anything they want to know about or locate.

These search engines in the meantime have developed more as advertising agencies earning billions of dollars in revenue from the small ad clips that runs on almost any and every internet site across the globe.

Three judges bench of India’s apex court headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan has issued notice filed by Dr. Sabu Mathew George. Dr George has highlighted the violation by the three search engines.

Supreme Court bench has also issued notices to the ministries of health and communications & information technology and has asked them to send their responses at the earliest.

Mathew George in his writ petition has said that there are at least 900,000 unborn girls who die each year through feticide.