initiated by bhukku on June 13, 2007
Bangalore: Following violence and protests over networking site Orkut, courtesy Shiv Sena’s latest controversy, parent company Google seems clear on their stand: they will not take off the site unless there is any violation of the listed guidelines and terms and conditions.
Shailesh Rao, MD (sales & operations) of Google India, maintains that while Orkut embodies freedom and has b more
Bangalore: Following violence and protests over networking site Orkut, courtesy Shiv Sena’s latest controversy, parent company Google seems clear on their stand: they will not take off the site unless there is any violation of the listed guidelines and terms and conditions.
Shailesh Rao, MD (sales & operations) of Google India, maintains that while Orkut embodies freedom and has been a leading platform for public debate in communities worldwide on important social and developmental topics, the company “takes abuse of Orkut seriously and has implemented tools to receive, handle and respond to complaints about content”.
“We do not endorse or proactively monitor the content of community discussions, but place a lot of trust in our users to notify us of violations,” Rao said on Tuesday.
Orkut users can report content to the review committee by clicking the ‘Report Abuse’ button on the site. There are also tools for community owners to delete posts or topics, ban users and delete anonymous posts.
Police can also avail of the ‘Priority Reporting Tool’ in case any misbehaviour or complaint is brought to their notice. This allows the police to directly notify Google about the problem at hand which Google looks into on a priority basis making it the fastest channel for action.
“But even in this case we do not change the method of action. Unless there is actual violation of any of our rules or terms, we will not bring down the site. And our terms and conditions document is already all-encompassing,” said a spokesperson.
The company is monitoring the situation closely and feels that since there are communities that praise as well as criticise Shiv Sena’s values and culture, “both the negatives and the positives balance out”.
