Delhi High Court asks Google to consider softer warning for WinZO app downloads

A division bench comprising justices Manmohan and Saurabh Banerjee told the Google counsel to consider giving a milder warning. “Are you sure it is a case of malware? You can say it is unverified. Harm may be a harsh word,” it said.

The high court asked Google whether it can say the application is harmful when it does not know verified reports about it. “Can you say it is harmful? You can say it is unverified and download it at your own risk,” the court said, while posting the matter for further hearing on April 26.

Google told the court that it displayed a disclaimer or warning to users upon an attempted download of WinZO application – “this type of file may harm your device. Do you want to keep WinZO.app anyway”.

The US-headquartered tech firm said several other browsers also display such a warning while downloading other third-party APK format files or applications so as to protect consumers from any possible malware and, therefore, the same constitutes an industry practice. “WinZo cannot dictate what policies Google can run… display warnings is not specific to India, but is followed across the globe,” the counsel said.

Opposing Google’s stand, Winzo Games Pvt Ltd, an online gaming platform, said Google had no verification as to whether its application contained malware. Winzo Games argued that about 42% of people refrain from downloading its app due to Google’s warning disclaimer.

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“If Google says it is not available in Playstore, then it is okay to put out a disclaimer. But to say that it will harm your device, there is a negative connotation with the application that this is malware,” the Winzo Games counsel contended.Winzo Games had challenged a single judge February order that dismissed its plea against Google’s search engine policy to display a warning to users, saying the tech firm’s disclaimer did not prohibit or block the app’s download. The high court noted that Google LLC used the warnings in respect of all third-party applications that are downloaded from the internet.

Citing the Information Technology Rules, 2021, it said that the law mandated such warnings to guard the users against potential threats.

The online gaming platform had contended that its trademark was infringed or tarnished by Google LLC when naming the APK file or application ‘WinZO’ in the warning displayed for its users.