IT rules not applicable to us: Google tells HC

Tech giant Google moved the Delhi High Court on Wednesday to seek interim protection against the move to declare its search engine a “social media intermediary” (SMI) under the new information technology rules, legal website Live Law reported. The company urged the court to set aside a 20 April order passed by a single-judge bench, which involved the company in relation to certain offending content on a pornographic website.

Google said although it was an intermediary, the high court judge had “mischaracterized” its search engine as a ‘SMI’ or ‘significant social media intermediary’. Under the new rules, a social media intermediary is defined as an entity that primarily or solely enables online interaction between two or more users and allows them to create,