Indian eBay CEO Arrested Over Sale Of Pornographic Material On The Site

Legal Issues

from the going-a-bit-overboard? dept

Last month, we wrote about a school in India that was completely banning all mobile phones after two students had filmed themselves in a pornographic act, and the video was getting passed around via MMS. It seemed to go overboard to ban all mobile phones (with cameras or without) just because some students acted irresponsibly, but this little video seems to be causing much bigger problems now. The head of eBay’s Indian affiliate, Baazee, has now been arrested because someone tried to sell a copy of the video on the site. The CEO, obviously, had nothing to do with the sale, but Indian officials decided that since he ran the site, and that “caused” the publishing of an obscene video. As you might imagine, folks at eBay are not amused and have asked the American government for help in monitoring the situation. It appears that plenty of people in India are also upset about the arrest, asking for better clarification on Indian laws that would prevent this sort of thing from happening again. What’s even odder is that the guy in question was denied bail. Here’s someone who didn’t actually do anything, went to New Delhi to help with the investigation, and is now being denied bail? What good does that do?