The advertisements and links pertaining to sex selection of unborn babies, in violation of the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act, have been banned by the major search engines like Google and Yahoo in India following a direction in this regard by the government.

According to official sources, the information technology giants had acted on the government directive. The Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA) under the then section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 had directed Google India, Yahoo India and Microsoft (MSN search engine) to ensure that no advertisements of sponsored links in respect of sex selection appear on search results on their websites.

Yahoo India and MSN search engine stated that their search engine did not provide any sponsored links within India on sex selection or determination. Also they take due diligence to enforce such restriction. Google has responded that their search engine do not allow users from India to search websites relating to prenatal sex determination.

“In case of an inadvertent slippage, and upon being notified of the presence of a non-complaint advertisement, a prompt and effective action is taken in disabling such sites by them. Google has very clearly stated that whenever an advertiser chooses to target users in India, the access to such advertisements is blocked to users with Indian IP address and users searching on the India domain loggers www.googleco.in. In addition, Google has developed technology that helps implement the advertisement policy by preventing advertisements from appearing on certain “keywords” on the Google website,’’ health ministry said.

The list of such keywords is constantly upgraded and there are on-going efforts to ensure that the list is comprehensive. The list of such keywords which have been blocked from triggering or sponsored results include – sex determination, determination of sex/gender, male/female selection method, choose the gender of your baby, gender determination, gender pre-selection, gender prediction, gender selection, sex pre-selection, sex prediction, sex selection etc, the IT major had informed the government.

It may be recalled that the Supreme Court had issued notices to these companies some time in 2008, following a complaint that they were promoting techniques and products for selection of sex through links and advertisements. A number of human right activists had also objected to such advertisements while the Centre was taking many steps to ensure the strict observance of the PNDT Act across the country.