eBay arrest sparks cyber law debate

Internet auction site eBay and industry officials have voiced anger over the jailing of the chief executive of eBay’s Indian subsidiary in connection with the online sale of a school sex video.

The US State Department has also made inquiries about the case.

Avnish Bajaj, CEO of Baazee.com, India’s most popular shopping portal, now owned by California-based eBay was arrested on Friday over the sale of images showing teenage classmates at a New Delhi high school engaged in a sex act.

The US company said it was “outraged” by the police action, saying the sale took place without the knowledge of company officials. The seller breached the company’s policies and Baazee.com took appropriate action in removing the item from its site as soon as it became aware of it, the company said

eBay spent €39.3m in June to acquire Baazee.com.

Bajaj was in court on Saturday, where the judge refused bail and sent him to jail for a week. A US consular official also attended the court hearing, the US embassy statement said.

“The US embassy is following this case very closely. There is high level interest in Washington regarding the case,” said an embassy statement at the weekend.

The seller, an engineering student in an eastern Indian city, was arrested a week ago. Police are hunting the boy who filmed the act on his camera-fitted mobile phone and circulated it to his friends.

“The video clip itself was not shown on the site; the seller offered to email the clip to the buyer directly,” an eBay statement said. “The listing violated Baazee.com’s policies and user agreement and was removed from the site once it was discovered.”

Bajaj was arrested after he voluntarily travelled to New Delhi to co-operate with the police investigating the case, eBay said, calling his arrest “unexpected and completely unwarranted”.

Industry officials and legal experts in India also deplored the arrest and demanded that the government clarify the country’s Information Technology Act.

Police said Bajaj was arrested under the 2000 IT Act that declares “publishing, transmitting, or causing to publish any information in electronic form, which is obscene” as a criminal offence. But the law is ambiguous about who should be held responsible for such offences.

According to the law, a network service provider or a website manager cannot be held responsible for an electronic offence if he has acted diligently to prevent it after being informed about the offence, says Pawan Duggal, an expert on cyber laws.

But the provisions in this respect have not been clearly spelled out in the IT Act, leaving room for numerous interpretations, Duggal adds.

Bajaj’s arrest had “many ramifications”, especially at a time when internet usage in the country was rapidly growing and foreign investors were increasingly looking to India for e-commerce opportunities, said Amit Mitra, the chief executive at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

“It’s a huge service industry of tomorrow. We need to be careful and cautious in what we do,” Mitra said. “The IT Act has to be now rethought.”