Indian government wants to screen Microsoft, Google, and other services...

The Newyork Times reports that the Indian government has requested the ability to screen user content on two of the internets biggest sites.

 On Monday afternoon, top executives with Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are meeting with Kapil Sibal, the Indian Minister for Telecommunications and Human Resources Development, or so a tip from two executives has said. The executives have requested anonymity as they are not legally obliged to talk about the meeting. Kapil Sibal's office has confirmed the meeting with Internet executives will take place on Monday but ia remaining tight-lipped beyond this.

An executive who was briefed on a meeting said that Mr. Sibal met with legal executives and key players in Facebook at his New Delhi office. At the meeting, Sibal drew attention to a Facebook page that maligned the Congress Party president, Sonia Gandhi. He told the executives it was "unacceptable", and asked for methods of monitoring what has been posted on the site.

The executives went on to say that Kapil Sibal has asked for a proactive pre-screening system, though that those invited are going to attempt to argue that it is not possible due to the volume of content on both sites coming from India alone. Google alone has over 100,000,000 users in India, and Facebook said earlier this year it had around 25,000,000 users in India alone, so the volume of content must be massive on both sites.

The Indian government had gone against the Blackberry devices. Last year they threatened to cut off access to BlackBerry services unless Research In Motion gave them the right to access messages sent from BlackBerry devices and now they trying to screen user content....RIDICULOUS...!!!