【2004/12/21 東森電子報】記者許瑜菁／編譯
印度高中生拍賣自拍色情畫面，連累印度eBay網站子公司的負責人被捕，由於這名負責人擁有美國公民身分，引起華府方面高度關注。
全球知名拍賣網站eBay，在印度所開設的Baazee.com拍賣網站負責人巴賈，17日晚間遭到逮捕，原因是一名17歲學生在網路上四處傳送他用手機自拍和女朋友的口交畫面，被一名大學生將這段畫面拿到Baazee.com網上銷售。
除了兩名傳播色情畫面的學生之外，也讓網站負責人巴賈觸犯印度資訊科技法中，禁止以電子形式傳輸和銷售猥褻物品，被法院判定羈押，不得交保，未來罪名成立的話，最高會判刑五年。
20日在美國國務院的例行記者會上，發言人包潤石對此事表示，「這種情況屬於美國政府最高度關切之事，國務卿密切注意情況發展，今早的內閣會議中還提到此事。」
他說，巴賈是美國公民，因為觸犯印度資訊法在17日被捕，美國領事官員已經前往探視過，並對法院裁定羈押提出抗告，聽證會這兩天正在進行。此外，有記者問到國安顧問萊斯是否介入此事，並致電印度政府關注，對此包潤石說，他並不清楚。
印度高科技業蓬勃發展，許多業者擔心，這個案例可能會對產業，造成負面的形象，嚇跑全球消費者和投資客，一名法律顧問說，「網站上有數百萬訪客，在那裡買賣東西，根本不可能監視每一次的訊息傳輸。」美國eBay總公司也表達了憤怒。
India roiled by Internet sex case
American charged over sale of clip By Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times | December 22, 2004
NEW DELHI -- From India's Parliament to corporate boardrooms and newspaper editorial boards, a video scandal involving teenage sex has set off a storm of controversy.
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The American head of an Indian Internet firm caught up in a scandal was released on bail yesterday as police interrogated the private school student who filmed the lewd clip with a cell phone camera.
A Delhi High Court judge ordered the release of Avnish Bajaj, head of the eBay-owned Baazee.com, who still faces charges that he allowed the sale of pornographic material on the Web site.
Bajaj was arrested Friday and initially held in Delhi's high-security Tihar prison after a video clip of two private school students engaged in a sexual act was posted for sale on Baazee.com, India's biggest Internet auction site.
The 17-year-old boy who shot the video on his cell phone also was arrested. A juvenile court allowed police to question him yesterday in the presence of a social worker and his father. He was being held in a juvenile home until early next month.
The boy and the 16-year-old girl in the clip have been expelled from Delhi Public School, one of the Indian capital's most prestigious private schools.
Police also have charged a student at the Indian Institute of Technology, whom Baazee identified as the person who offered the clip for sale on the Web site. Investigators are looking for more suspects in a case that has scandalized India, where even public displays of affection as tame as kissing are frowned upon.
Police say the boy shot the video with a cell phone in his bedroom in July. The clip began to spread on cell phone and Internet networks after he showed it to friends.
A member of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party accused the United States of meddling in Indian affairs after local reports, citing unidentified official sources, said that the incoming US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, had taken an interest in Bajaj's case.
A US Embassy spokesman here did not respond to an interview request, but a State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, told reporters in Washington on Monday that ''this situation is one of concern at the highest levels of the US government."
He added that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ''has been following it closely" and had asked about the case at a morning staff meeting.
Bajaj, 34, is a naturalized American citizen who lives in India. He sold Baazee.com to eBay, based in San Jose, Calif., for about $50 million in August.
The embassy has provided him with consular assistance, and an American diplomat attended a court hearing Monday at which Bajaj appealed a lower court order that he remain in jail until Friday.
Bajaj faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of more than $2,200 if found guilty of violating India's Information Technology Act, which prohibits ''publishing, transmitting, or causing to publish any information in electronic form which is obscene."
Bajaj's attorney argued that the Internet executive should be released on bail because he had cooperated with authorities and had removed the listing of the video sex clip as soon as it came to the company's attention. The seller offered to e-mail the clip for just less than $3, but the clip itself was not shown on Baazee.com, the company said.