If there's a segment that indicates how poorly thought out India's finalized Internet control rules are, it is sub-rule 2 and 4 of the segment pertaining to Intermediaries in the country's finalized Information Technology rules: the first of which defines what actions by a user can result in the removal of content (via intermediaries like ISPs, hosting service providers and social networks), and the latter, which defines who can get the content removed, and how. You can find a copy of the final rules here (pdf, specifically between page 11 and 14), and an annotated version of the Intermediary guidelines here, and there are significant changes. In our opinion, these rules give the Indian government the ability to gag free speech, and block any website it deems fit, without publicly disclosing why sites have been blocked, who took the decision to block it, and just as importantly, providing adequate recourse to blogs, sites and online and mobile businesses, for getting the block removed. These rules are applicable to intermediaries, through which access to content will be controlled It is a set of rules that we think is manipulative in its approach, but clearly in line with a pattern we have observed with government regulations relating to digital activity, what we like to call the troika of paranoia - increasing monitoring, identification and the power to restrict/block; 7,500 to 9,000 orders for interception of telephones per month is not a joke. If you think it's unlikely that any well known large sites might be…
Please subscribe to MediaNama. Don't share prints and PDFs.
You May Also Like
News
Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...
Advert
135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...
News
By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...
News
Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...