Google trains cops to police Web2.0

By Goutam Das

Bengaluru

Sept. 23: Search king Google is working with cyber police in several Indian cities to monitor and weed out objectionable material from its online properties such as social networking site Orkut.

Although the firm hasn’t yet covered the entire nation because it is logistically a difficult task, the company says it has trained policemen in most tier 1 and 2 cities. The police can use what is called a ‘priority reporting tool’ — when they flag a video, a community or a scrap, it reaches Google faster for review compared to content flagged by any other user.

The firm says efforts such as these are very much its own initiative. Orkut has been at the receiving end time and again, be it offensive content about Congress president Sonia Gandhi posted in a ‘I hate Sonia Gandhi’ community or derogatory comments on Maratha hero Chhatrapati Shivaji.

The popularity of the social networking site in the subcontinent had also encouraged people to create ‘hate India’ communities. While these have now been removed, ‘hate Pakistan’ and ‘hate China’ communities are now having their day in the sun.

It is difficult to ascertain whether or not some of these communities are politically motivated — just like there is a ‘We hate Sonia Gandhi’ community, there exists an ‘I hate LK Advani’ group in Orkut.

"There is no way to stop people from creating what they want," Google India’s country head for products Vinay Goel says. "In YouTube, 12 hours of content is generated every minute. In Orkut, terabytes of information gets generated all the time. It is not humanly possible to go and look at every sentence that is being written," he says.

The firm, therefore, thought safeguards. "You don’t want to stifle the freedom of speech and yet, ensure that people are working within legal boundaries, are within the sensitivities of that culture. So if you find something offensive, flag it. We will review it. We have very specific terms and conditions and if that is violated by the user, we will bring it up. This model has worked well," Goel says.

Google says that the police usually wouldn’t get access to any private information about users beyond what is already there in the profile posted.

However, if the company is required legally to divulge more information, it will have to do it. In the past, the firm had reportedly provided Mumbai police with the IP addresses of those misusing Orkut.

Meanwhile, Google has launched an awareness campaign called ‘Be Net Smart’. Along with the police, representatives from the firm are going to schools and colleges in some cities teaching students on using the Internet safely.

"These include the kind of passwords to use, how to sign off, sites to be avoided, and the usual traps such as financial fraud schemes floating on the Internet. There will always be some people who would use the Internet for malicious purposes. The more you know about such traps, the less you will fall for them," Goel says.

Many other new features in the networking site, which includes a greater level of personalisation, were based on user feedback.

Google rarely gives out details on the role of any particular development centre in its products, but Goel says India influences Orkut "quite a bit".