Three major search engines — Microsoft, Google and Yahoo — have agreed to block ads commercially promoting sex determination tests.
The government informed the Supreme Court bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice C. Nagappan that in compliance with the provisions of the statue prohibiting pre-natal sex determination tests, the facility to access information on such tests by using certain keywords stands blocked.
“Keeping in mind the sensitivities attached to this issue and to ensure that technology is used in right earnest to curb this retrograde practice, we have decided to disable certain terms from appearing as autocomplete predictions as well as display a warning message on relevant searches to inform users of the unlawful nature of this subject,”
— a Google said in a statement.
The apex court was also given a list of the keywords, which can no more be used for accessing information on sex determination tests.