Google Helps Indian Government With Arrest

Google recently helped the Indian government with identifying a man who wrote vulgar messages on its social network. The man was saying derogatory things about one of the main leaders in India.

Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid is a 22-year-old IT professional and a member of Google's social network Orkut. Vaid set up a group on Orkut named “I hate Sonia Gandhi”. Sonia Gandhi, not related to Mahatma Gandhi, is one of the prominent politicians in the ruling Congress party in India. Vaid apparently wrote lots of hate and obscene messages about Sonia Gandhi. The police later found out about these messages and were trying to arrest him. The Cyber crime division in India contacted Google to request details about Vaid. Google refuses to reveal private information of third parties, but in this case the company was forced to comply with Indian laws. They provided Vaid’s address information to the police. Vaid was charged under section 292 of Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act because he created a profile and then posted content in vulgar language about Sonia Gandhi in the community. He faces a prison sentence of up to five years and also may have to pay a fine of up to 100,000 Rupees ($2,358 USD). Earlier in February, a Moroccan man was arrested for impersonating the King’s brother on Facebook. Facebook provided his information to the government of Morocco. Last year, Yahoo provided information about a blogger to the Chinese government after the blogger wrote anti-government statements. He was given a 10 years prison sentence. In the U.S., MySpace agreed to provide information about sexual predators. Unless there is a special international law for privacy or freedom of speech, Google and others are forced to comply with local laws. It is against users' privacy, but they have to obey the rules of the country in which they operate. Is Google right in providing the personal information of its users to the government?