New Delhi: Today, on 15th March, the Delhi High Court is told by the Google India Pvt. Ltd. that it has not earned any revenue out of the agreement with the Government or any other Monetary benefit from content uploaded under the deal.
The High Court’s concerned bench comprising of Justice- Badar Durrez Ahmed and Justice- Sanjeev Sachdeva was told by Google that it has no contractual relationship with the Centre regarding content uploaded by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on YouTube or any other of its sites. Moreover, such submissions were preferred to be made in an affidavit filed by it in response to the Courts’ query to it, which was made on an earlier data. Court that time questioned that whether YouTube was generating the revenue from contents uploaded by the Government.
It is notable that the YouTube is being operated by the Google Inc, as a parent company of Google Ireland. And its filed affidavit also stated that on the content owned by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India which are provided and uploaded on the YouTube platform by the Ministry, there is no advertisements. It was also seen that the meanwhile, the Central Government found telling the Court that the Government is having no “customised agreements” with the Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp. However, it is also specifically marked that the Government is having an agreement with the Google Ireland/ YouTube, which is mentioned above.
Moreover, such contentions were preferred by the Government, in the response to the query which the Court has put forwarded as to whether the Ministry has any agreement with such Social Media entities. Also, these affidavits were filed in connection with the Public Interest Litigation which was filed by the Former BJP leader- K. N. Govindacharya where he questioned the social media usage by the Government.
However, in an additional affidavit which the Court sought from Google Inc, the Court questioned whether it is making any money out of the content uploaded by ministry and listed the matter for further hearing on April 27th.