News Analysis India

Tag: Google

  • Google wins legal battle over song lyrics copyright

    By IANS

    Google has won a legal battle against song lyrics platform Genius that claimed that the tech giant used its transcribed lyrics without permission in search results.

    According to The Verge, a three-judge panel affirmed the earlier decision, saying that the lyrics are protected by copyrights that Genius doesn’t own.

    Genius had sued Google in 2019, arguing that Google was scraping lyrics from its website in violation of Genius’ copyright.

    The lawsuit claimed that Google was scraping info from its website by putting watermarks on its lyrics, which then appeared in Google searches without any attribution to Genius.

    Google then said that it always strives to uphold high standards of conduct for itself and from the partners we work with.

    ALSO READ | Google, Meta face EU probe into possible competition breach

    “Music publishers often don’t have digital copies of the lyrics text. In these cases, we — like music streaming services and other companies — license the lyrics text from third parties,” the company said.

    “We do not crawl or scrape websites to source these lyrics. The lyrics that you see in information boxes on Search come directly from lyrics content providers, and they are updated automatically as we receive new lyrics and corrections on a regular basis,” it added.

    To help make it clearer where the lyrics come from, Google started including attribution to the third party providing the digital lyrics text.

    A judge had ruled in August 2020 that while Genius’ claims of scraping appeared credible, they didn’t constitute a copyright violation since Genius isn’t the actual copyright holder of the lyrics.

  • Google pays tribute to late star Betty White with search Easter egg

    By ANI

    WASHINGTON: Google has unveiled an Easter egg in honor of actor-comedian Betty White, who passed away just weeks before her 100th birthday.

    In honor of White’s 100th birthday today, Google showered its search page with rose petals — a nod to Rose, her beloved character from ‘The Golden Girls’.

    To see the tribute, you can Google search her name and it will unlock a special animated Easter egg with rose petals fluttering down over the Search results page, along with a message that says “Thank you for being a friend,” — the title of ‘The Golden Girls’ theme song.

    As per Variety, White’s death certificate revealed that she suffered a stroke six days before she breathed her last on December 31, at the age of 99.

    White had a career in TV and film that spanned more than 60 years. In addition to her turn on ‘The Golden Girls’ from 1985-92, she had more than 120 acting credits to her name.

    The Television Hall of Fame inductee’s roles included Sue-Ann Nivens on ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ in the ’70s and Elka Ostrovsky on ‘Hot in Cleveland’ from 2010-15.

    ALSO READ: Betty White, TV’s Golden Girl, dies at 99

    She also hosted ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 2010 — at the age of 88 — and appeared in film comedies such as ‘The Proposal’, ‘You Again’, and ‘Bringing Down the House’.

    A lifelong animal lover, White was born in Oak Park, Ill., before her family moved to Los Angeles, where her acting aspirations began at Beverly Hills High School.

    The TV legend won five Primetime Emmy Awards over the span of her acting career. 

  • Delhi HC asks Google, YouTube, Centre to take steps to remove woman’s objectionable photos from internet

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has asked Google, YouTube and Delhi Police to take steps to remove the sites and links carrying objectionable photos and videos of a married woman from the Internet.

    Justice Subramonium Prasad made it clear that this was not an adversarial litigation and listed the matter for September 16, while asking Google, YouTube, the Centre and Delhi Police Cyber Cell to file their replies to the woman’s plea seeking directions to them to remove the photos and videos.

    The high court’s interim order came on a petition by the woman seeking directions to the Centre to block pornographic sites operating under pseudo names.

    The plea also sought directions to Google block any nude, sexually explicit or morphed photos of the woman appearing on their sites.

    “It is made clear that this is not an adversarial litigation and it is expected that counsel for Google LLC, YouTube, Centre and Cyber Cell of Delhi Police will take necessary steps to remove the sites and links, carrying objectionable photos and videos of the petitioner, from the Internet before the next date of hearing,” the court said.

    Central government standing counsel Anurag Ahluwalia assured the court that the Union of India will take necessary steps for removal of the sites and links from the Internet carrying objectionable photographs and videos of the woman and sought time to file an affidavit.

    Advocate Mamta Jha, representing Google LLC and YouTube, submitted that all the URLs, which are with the YouTube, have been removed and 10 channels have already been blocked.

    In order to expedite the process of removing the links and sites from the Internet, the court impleaded the Delhi Police through Cyber Cell as a party.

  • Google removes 95,680 content pieces in July in India: Compliance report

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Google received 36,934 complaints from users and removed 95,680 pieces of content based on those complaints in July, the tech giant company said in its monthly transparency reports released on Tuesday.

    In addition to reports from users, Google also removed 5,76,892 pieces of content in July as a result of automated detection.

    The US-based company has made these disclosures as part of compliance with India’s IT rules that came into force on May 26.

    On Tuesday, Google said it had received 36,934 complaints in July from individual users located in India via designated mechanisms, and the number of removal actions as a result of user complaints was 95,680 – the highest so far.

    In June, Google had received 36,265 complaints and removed 83,613 pieces of content as a result of user complaints.

    It had removed 59,350 pieces of content in April and 71,132 pieces in May.

    “Some requests may allege infringement of intellectual property rights, while others claim violation of local laws prohibiting types of content on grounds such as defamation. When we receive complaints regarding content on our platforms, we assess them carefully,” Google said on Tuesday.

    The content removal was done under several categories, including copyright (94,862), trademark (807), court order (4), circumvention (3), counterfeit (1), graphic sexual content (1), impersonation (1) and other legal requests (1).

    Google explained that a single complaint may specify multiple items that potentially relate to the same or different pieces of content, and each unique URL in a specific complaint is considered an individual “item” that is removed.

    Under the new IT rules, large digital platforms – with over 5 million users – will have to publish periodic compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken thereon.

    The report must also include the number of specific communication links or parts of the information that the intermediary has removed or disabled access to in pursuance of any proactive monitoring conducted by using automated tools.

    Google’s report showed that it had removed 5,76,892 pieces of content in July as a result of automated detection.

    This number stood at 5,26,866 in June.

    The company said for data related to automated detection processes, it has included data where the sender or creator of the content is located in India.

    “In order to attribute a location to an individual sender or creator, we use data signals such as location of account creation, IP address at the time of video upload and user phone number, as available.

    Please note that senders or creators of content may attempt to evade detection through location-concealing mechanisms,” it said.

    While Google is committed to revealing any bad actors through industry-leading detection tools, reporting based on location attribution should be interpreted as a directional estimate, it added.

    The company noted that when it receives complaints regarding content on its platforms, it assesses them carefully.

    “There are many reasons we may not have removed content in response to a user complaint. For example, some requests may not be specific enough for us to know what the user wanted us to remove (for example, no URL is listed in the request), or the content has already been removed by the user when we process the complaint,” it explained.

    A removal action may be taken on a complaint if the content violates Google’s Community Guidelines, content policies, or local legal requirements, while for automated detection processes, a removal action is taken if content violates its Community Guidelines or content policies, it added.

  • First compliance report by Google, FB under new IT rules big step towards transparency: Minister Prasad

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday lauded significant social media platforms such as Google, Facebook and Instagram for publishing their first compliance report on voluntary removal of offensive posts as per new IT rules, terming it a big step towards transparency.

    Under the new IT rules, large digital platforms that have over 5 million users are required to publish periodic compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken thereon.

    “Nice to see significant social media platforms like Google, Facebook and Instagram following the new IT Rules. First compliance report on voluntary removal of offensive posts published by them as per IT Rules is a big step towards transparency,” Prasad tweeted.

    The publishing of compliance reports by Google, Facebook and Instagram is bound to turn up the heat on Twitter, which has been engaged in a tussle with the Indian government over the new social media rules.

    The government has confronted Twitter for deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the country’s new IT rules, and not appointing the requisite officers, leading to it losing the ‘safe harbour’ immunity.

    Facebook on Friday said it “actioned” over 30 million content pieces across 10 violation categories during May 15-June 15 in the country, as the social media giant brought out its maiden monthly compliance report as mandated by the IT rules.

    Instagram took action against about two million pieces across nine categories during the same period.

    ‘Actioned’ content refers to the number of pieces of content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) where action has been taken for violation of standards.

    Taking action could include removing a piece of content from Facebook or Instagram or covering photos or videos that may be disturbing to some audiences with a warning.

    Google had stated that 27,762 complaints were received by Google and YouTube in April this year from individual users in India over alleged violation of local laws or personal rights, which resulted in removal of 59,350 pieces of content.

    Koo, in its report, said it has proactively moderated 54,235 content pieces, while 5,502 posts were reported by its users during June.

    Apart from publishing periodic compliance reports every month, the rules also require disclosure on the number of specific communication links or parts of information that the intermediary has removed or disabled access to in pursuance of any proactive monitoring conducted by using automated tools.

    According to the IT rules that aim to curb blatant abuse and misuse of platforms, the significant social media intermediaries are required to appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal officer and a grievance officer and these officials have to be resident in India.

    Non-compliance with the IT rules would result in these platforms losing their intermediary status that provides them immunity from liabilities over any third-party data hosted by them.

    Facebook recently named Spoorthi Priya as its grievance officer in India.

    India is a major market for global digital platforms.

    As per data cited by the government earlier this year, India has 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook subscribers, 21 crore Instagram clients, while 1.75 crore account holders are on microblogging platform Twitter.

    Twitter’s apparent heavyhandedness has come under government scrutiny – the microblogging platform has not complied with the new rules, called intermediary guidelines, that mandate setting up a robust grievance redressal mechanism and appointing officers to coordinate with law enforcement.

    Twitter recently named California-based Jeremy Kessel as India’s grievance redressal officer on the platform’s website — although the appointment does not meet the requirements of new IT rules that clearly mandate key officers including the grievance officer, to be resident in India.

    Notably, Twitter has lost its legal shield as an intermediary in India, becoming liable for users posting any unlawful content.

    Amid the standoff with the government over compliance with new IT rules, the Twitter website on Monday had displayed a wrong map of India that showed Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh as separate country.

    Twitter had removed the wrong map later that day, after facing heavy backlash from netizens.

    Even in the backdrop of heightened strained relations with the Indian government, Twitter recently briefly blocked IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from accessing his own account over alleged violation of US copyright law — a move that was immediately slammed by the minister as being arbitrary and in gross violation of IT rules.

    Twitter and the government have been on a collision course on multiple issues in the past months as well, including during the farmers’ protest and later when the microblogging platform tagged political posts of several leaders of the ruling party BJP as “manipulated media”, drawing a sharp rebuke from the Centre.

  • India agrees to international framework on taxing MNCs like Google, Facebook

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: India has extended its support for an international tax framework, which calls for global minimum corporate tax of 15% and makes way for countries to tax multinationals, especially tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon, on their earnings there. According to finance ministry officials, India will be able to tax big MNCs doing business in the country without having physical presence here up to 20% of their profits. 

    In 2017-18, the Indian operations of Google and Facebook reported total revenues of Rs 9,800 crore ($1.4 billion). Their tax payments were Rs 240 crore ($38 mn) primarily on income.According to sources, India may have to let go of the 2% equalisation tax levied on these firms, which is also a major hurdle in the trade negotiation between the US and India. 

    After remaining a non-starter for many years, the tax proposal got a big push after US president Joe Biden and his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sought to stop American firms fleeing to countries like Ireland, Hungary and Lichtenstein and those in the Caribbean region that offer lower corporate taxes.According to OECD, profit shifting practices cost countries $100-240 billion in lost revenue annually, which is the equivalent to 4-10% of the global corporate tax revenue.

    Some experts warn the proposal is tilted in favour of big nations. What will be the long term implications of the tax for India, is still a matter of debate. Finance ministry officials however claim that they have bargained hard on their demands.

  • Social media misuse: Facebook, Google representatives depose before parliamentary committee

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Facebook and Google representatives Tuesday deposed before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology over the issue of social media misuse and safeguarding citizens’ rights, with sources saying they were told to comply with the new IT rules, government instructions and court orders.

    The panel, chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, had asked them to appear in-person at the parliament secretariat here.

    The sources also said the representatives were conveyed that there are loopholes in their existing data protection and privacy policy mechanism, and that they need to put in place stringent safeguards to protect data privacy and data security of their users.

    While Facebook’s country public policy director Shivnath Thukral and general counsel Namrata Singh appeared before the panel on behalf of the company, search engine Google was represented by its country head (government affairs and public policy) Aman Jain and director (legal) Gitanjali Duggal.

    The agenda of the parliamentary panel meeting was to safeguard citizens’ rights and prevent the misuse of social/online news media platforms.

    The sources said that Tharoor expressed concern about the privacy of women users of social media platforms.

    He said he has also received complaints from several women MPs in this regard.

    Later, Google said in a statement that it has consistently invested in product changes, resources and personnel as part of its efforts to keep users safe in compliance with the local laws in India.

    “We always welcome opportunities to engage in dialogue with the policy makers and share details of our efforts in combating illegal content and ensuring the safety of users across our platforms,” a Google spokesperson said.

    The spokesperson further stated: “We have consistently invested in significant product changes, resources and personnel, and have made significant progress in balancing the openness of our platforms with the responsibility of keeping the community safe in compliance with the local laws in the country.”

    Comments from Facebook were not immediately available.

    Tharoor also expressed displeasure over some members of panel being quoted in the media to report about the proceedings, with sources saying the MPs present in the meeting agreed the confidentiality clause should be adhered to.

    Earlier, Facebook representatives had informed the parliamentary panel that their company policy does not allow their officials to attend in-person meetings because of their Covid-related protocol.

    But Tharoor conveyed to Facebook that its officials will have to appear in-person since the parliament secretariat does not allow any virtual meetings.

    Facebook and Google representatives were called days after Twitter officials deposed before the panel.

    In the last meeting, several members of the panel had categorically told Twitter that the rule of land is supreme not the social media platform’s policies.

    Also on Tuesday, the parliamentary panel asked Twitter to explain with 48 hours why it had blocked access of Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Tharoor to their accounts, the sources said.

    Last week, Twitter had blocked Union Information and Technology Minister Prasad from accessing his account which ratcheted up tensions with the government as it came under renewed attack for not following local laws.

  • Social media misuse: Facebook representatives depose before parliamentary committee

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Facebook India officials Tuesday deposed before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology on the issue of misuse of social media platforms. Facebook and Google officials were summoned by parliamentary panel chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

    Facebook’s country public policy director Shivnath Thukral and general counsel Namrata Singh deposed before the panel on Tuesday. The agenda of the parliamentary panel meeting is to safeguard citizens’ rights and prevent the misuse of social/online news media platforms.

    Earlier Facebook representatives had informed the parliamentary panel that their company policy does not allow their officials to attend in-person meetings because of their COVID-related protocol. But chairman Shashi Tharoor conveyed to Facebook that its officials will have to appear in-person since the parliament secretariat does not allow any virtual meetings.

    The Parliamentary Committee on IT will also summon representatives of YouTube and other Social Media Intermediaries in the coming weeks over the issue. Facebook and Google representatives were called days after Twitter officials deposed before the panel.

    In the last meeting, several members of the panel had categorically told Twitter that the rule of land is supreme not the social media platform’s policies.

  • Parliamentary panel on IT summons Google, Facebook on June 29

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: Parliament Standing Committee on Information Technology is scheduled to hold a meeting on June 29 to hear the views of Facebook India and Google India on safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social online news media platforms.

    The Committee has called the representatives of the two IT giants to register their views on the matter.

    Earlier on June 18, the Committee had called Twitter to appear before the panel to give representation on how to prevent misuse of social media and online news.

    On June 20, India’s permanent mission at the United Nations had clarified that India’s new IT rules are “designed to empower ordinary users of social media” and that they were finalised after the government held broad consultations with civil society and other stakeholders in 2018.

    The Central government has framed the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (‘new IT Rules’) and notified the same on February 25, 2021. The Rules have come into effect from May 26, 2021. 

  • Google asked to preserve data of PDP leader Parra’s emails to Pakistan-based terror groups: J&K Police

    Parra #39;s lawyer, as well as the PDP, has denied all the allegations levelled against Parra and has termed them #39;politically motivated #39;.