The fight to save the girl child in India sees new challanges every day and internet, it seems, is posing more problems than the solutions on the issue.
The Net is flooded with websites offering sex selection of unborn child and these sites are being supported by prestigious search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
Social workers allege the sites directly aim Indian users and have moved the Supreme Court against the tech giants.
It is startling fact that according to a British medical journal Lancet, 10 million female fetuses have been aborted in the past two decades in India.
Even as Yahoo and Microsoft didn't post any comment on the court notice, Google has defended the allegation by citing its ad policy.
Google said that they take local laws seriously and will review the petition carefully but the reality is something else.
A search for ‘sex selection’ on google.com returns numerous sponsored links including sites like about.com and GenderPlanner.com. This openly offer net users various methods to plan and select the sex of their unborn child.
A Microsoft live search conducted through MSN India returned two search ads offering information about gender selection.
Social reformers say they have effectively stopped sex selection advertising in the print medium, but Indian and foreign advertisers have moved to the Internet.
But there are some Net users who also defend the freedom of internet. One such user says that people do not hold the telephone company liable when two callers use the phone lines to plan a crime.
He points out that for the same reasons, it is a fundamental principle of the Internet that you do not blame the neutral intermediaries for the actions of their customers.