What’s the news: An inter-ministerial task force set up to form rules and regulations for the online gaming sector has restarted the debate on whether such game aggregators are intermediaries or publishers, reported the Hindustan Times. As per a report viewed by HT, the task force discussed whether gaming platforms can be regulated under section 79(2)(c) of the IT Act, 2000, “providing for rule-making power to prescribe due diligence to be observed by the intermediaries to claim safe harbour under section 79(1) against third party content,” while also acting as publishers. While the task force favours a new central legislation to license the online gaming sector and block/deregister entities violating Indian laws, it fails to define an online gaming platform. However, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) said that such platforms can only be publishers of content since they “play a significant role in determining the information/content being offered to users.” It said that section 79 cannot be used for regulating online gaming platforms. Further, rules framed under a central law may not be able to override state laws leading to inconsistency of regulation across India, said MIB as per HT. While it suggested framing of an appropriate central legislation for regulation, the Ministry said rules under the IT Act “may not serve the desired purpose.” The report mentioned that the task force’s scope only covers online gaming i.e. games of skill including real money games of skill. It does not include online gambling since “betting & gambling” is…
