The three US companies were reprimanded by the country's Supreme Court earlier this year for not helping to uphold a law that has been in place since 1994 that makes conducting, selling or advertising sex-selection services a punishable offense. They have now all pledged to uphold the ban, the Indian health ministry told the court on Monday, according to a Bloomberg report.

India has one of the world's worst gender imbalances due to widespread female foeticide and infanticide caused by the fact that many parents prefer to have sons.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all initially said that it would be too difficult to ban the services without also banning relevant news and non-promotional content on the subject, but have now agreed to uphold the ban anyway.

It is not known how the companies will implement the ban. None of the companies responded immediately to a request for comment.