Content

India Sues Google, Yahoo & Microsoft For Allowing Sex Selection Search Ads

India’s National Newspaper reports that India’s Supreme Court is suing Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for allowing “sex selection” ads. India has a law that does not allow the sale or advertisement of services that allow people to pick the sex of their unborn child. India has virtually stopped all advertisements on TV, newsprint and radio, and are now trying to ban the ads online.

India’s “The Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act” disallows ads for services or products that aid in the selection of an unborn child’s sex. Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices P. Sathasivam and J.M. Panchal filed a notice on a “writ petition filed by Dr. Sabu Mathew George,” said the Hindu paper. The Doctor wants to sue the three companies for punitive and deterrent action.


Dr. George told IDG News:

These companies are making money by breaking Indian laws.

In other legal news, Google ‘Ransoming’ Customers Searching For Trademarked Brands, Lawsuit Claims from InformationWeek reports on the third Google lawsuit for fraud and unfair business practices for selling ads on low-quality Web pages. I am honestly tired of covering these stories, so feel free to read it at InformationWeek. Also, Gary Price emailed me a link to the PDF of the filinghere.

Explore more on

Google India InformationWeek Lawsuit Microsoft Online advertising PDF Supreme Court of the United States Yahoo
Add Search Engine Land as a preferred source on Google

Editorial disclosure

Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.

About the author

Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.