Gender selection product ads pulled on Google and Microsoft

The techniques being advertised are considered illegal in India, a country estimated to have lost literally millions of female fetuses because of the widespread preference for male children.

In 1994 India approved the Prenatal Determination Act, which bans the use of technology, such as ultrasounds and sonograms, for the purpose of sex-selective abortion. The law also bans advertisements for prenatal sex determination, as well as the practice of pre-conception sex selection. The ratio of men to women in India is 927 women to every 1000 men, compared with a global ratio of 1050 women to every 1000 men.

In August, the country's Supreme Court requested that the two companies, as well as Yahoo, respond to complaints made by advocates who said ads for products for gender selection, such as do-it-yourself kits, deter their work to end sex-selective abortions in the country.