Last week, the industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) released a statement on India's proposed gaming rules, calling them "right on intent but poor on scoping". Now, four of its members—who also happen to be rather prominent gaming companies—have distanced themselves from IAMAI's stance, reports Economic Times. Dream Sport, Mobile Premier League, Zupee, and Games 24x7 reportedly wrote to the IT Ministry last week saying that they weren't aligned with IAMAI's stance here. They also claimed they hadn't been consulted before the industry body issued its statement. Why does it matter? Governments and companies have been trying to figure out how to regulate online gaming for a while now. What this difference in opinion tells us: rules (and sub-rules) that some online gaming companies find favourable may not be everyone else's cup of tea. Building policy consensus is easier said than done. But, what did IAMAI say in the first place? India's proposed online gaming rules come in the wake of a lot of complaints of consumer-related harms. So, among other things, the rules introduce different mechanisms to protect consumers from dodgy (and illegal) games. One of those is ensuring that every game is verified by a self-regulatory body—and meets certain safety criteria set by the organisation. "Online gaming intermediaries" will first have to check that a game has been verified this way before hosting it. Among other concerns, IAMAI wasn't too keen on the current provision. "Certain provisions of the draft…seem to imply that service providers or partners that advertise, publish…
