Note: A significant development since this post: Indian Government Blocks Typepad, Mobango, Clickatell As a part of the rules being finalized to supplement India’s Information Technology Amendment Act 2008, rules are being included that will indirectly allow the Indian government to control content being published on the Internet. This is hardly surprising: last week, at the CII Content Summit, three government functionaries - Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Ambika Soni, TRAI Chief JS Sarma and I&B Secretary Raghu Menon, had all mentioned concerns about content on the Internet, even as they tried to downplay content regulation: - Sarma said that "How do you control the Internet? That is baffling and challenging, and it is fraught with issues of freedom and security. Security in terms of physical security and others. This will have to be studied over the course of next few months or the next year or so." - Menon pointed towards the UK and issues of pornography, saying that the IPTV Association in the UK is in contact with the ISPs to ensure that the ISPs provide regulated content. People who are concerned about this, they're approaching the ISPs for what is appropriate or not. This is a subject which is outside the purview of the ministry I work in." Menon works in the I&B Ministry, and this modus operandi of dealing with ISPs would be the mandate of the Ministry of Information Technology, which is putting into place these rules for regulating content through ISPs. A few things…
