by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : As governments the world over realise the urgent need to tame the anarchic world of the Internet — dominated by a couple of tech giants — and begin to write new rules pertaining to users’ rights, data privacy and spread of false news and extremist content, India too must shun archaic regulations and implement New-Age cyber laws.
The debate is now growing about exercising some form of control over the web when billions are communicating daily over social media platforms, smartphone use is on the rise and data consumption is breaking all previous records.
Look at how the Unites States has brought Facebook under intense scrutiny over Russian ads on its platform during the 2016 US presidential election, or how the European Union in June slapped a record $2.7 billion fine on Google after it found that it “abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors”.
Speaking at the United Nations last week, British Prime Minister Theresa May said technology companies must go “further and faster” in removing extremist content from their platforms.
In the meanwhile, there is widespread criticism across the world, including in India, over sharing of user data between WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook.
Like the Western world, the time is ripe for India to wake up from its slumber in terms of cyber regulation and come up with appropriate strategies to tighten its cyber policies vis-a-vis the Internet, say experts, adding that the existing cyber law is not adequate to deal with current realities.
“India does not have any detailed legislation on data privacy on Internet/social media platforms. India also does not have a data protection law. The Information Technology Act, 2000, which got amended only in 2008, is neither a data privacy law nor a data protection law,” Pavan Duggal, the nation’s leading cyber law expert, told IANS.
According to him, Indians are slowly beginning to discover that they have no effective remedy once they are targeted in the anarchic system on Internet, including social media platforms.
Data intermediaries and data repositories need to be made responsible for ensuring data privacy of their customers, stressed Duggal, also a Supreme Court advocate.
“India can come up with dedicated new legislation on data protection as well as data privacy. The Supreme Court has already expressed the hope in the landmark judgment of Justice K.S. Puttaswami vs Union of India that the Government would take into account the fundamental principles concerning privacy which have been laid down by the Supreme Court and enshrine them in new provisions of law,” Duggal informed.
According to The New York Times, in the last five years, more than 50 countries have passed laws to gain greater control over how their people use Internet.
“India is woefully under-prepared to address issues of data protection and cyber-security. We need a data protection law that protects citizens from misuse of data by the government and companies with strict liability and extremely high statutory damages that must be awarded within a strict period of time,” noted Mishi Choudhary, President and Legal Director of New Delhi-based Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC.in), a non-profit setup.
“In addition, we need a citizen’s privacy charter against surveillance. But overall, we need simplicity in communications in terms of use, law and not an overload of legal jargon and over-regulation,” Choudhary told IANS.
According to Duggal, it appears that governments at times do tend to get intimidated by Internet giants.
“However, every country provides a fertile market for big Internet players and, hence, the country can rely upon its intrinsic strengths to regulate the big ones. Just because an Internet player is a big player, that does not mean that the said player is not amenable to regulation,” Duggal emphasised.
With a nearly 1.3 billion population — and most of it now connected — India represents a huge market for web players who can’t afford to ignore its potential.
“If big Internet players want to have access to the India market, they have to comply with Indian regulations,” Duggal added.
With a growing chorus for digital India and realising a billion dreams, a new legal cyber framework should be the first and foremost step by the government.
“The onus is now on the government. It will be interesting to see what approaches the government would want to adopt in this case,” the experts noted.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Opinions, Technology
By Tanay Sukumar, Four of five Indians could afford the internet if data costs fell by 66 percent, according to a Facebook-commissioned report on Internet access. But Indian telecom operators already run data services at a 11 percent loss, making cost-cutting difficult.
The statistics mean that a data plan currently priced at Rs.100 should not cost more than Rs.34 if India has to make the internet affordable for 80 percent of its population.
But the adverse economics imply this cannot happen without intervention from the government – whose Rs.20,000 crore ($2.9 billion) plan to connect each of Indias 250,000 panchayats with broadband by 2018 is three years behind schedule.
The internet reached 29 percent of Indians – 354 million users – in September 2015, IndiaSpend reported. It could rise to 39 percent, or 462 million users, by June 2016.
But if it were to reach 100 percent, Indias GDP could be increased by an extra $1 trillion by 2020, according to the Facebook-commissioned report, published this month. To put this in perspective, Indias GDP crossed the $2 trillion mark for the first time in 2014, according to World Bank data.
To optimise data costs, the report considered 500 MB data plans, classifying them affordable if each cost less than five percent of a persons monthly income.
The report, titled Connecting the world: Ten mechanisms for global inclusion, is based on a study done by PricewaterhouseCoopers for Facebook.
Internet access drives up GDP
The Facebook report said that global GDP could grow by an additional $6.7 trillion by 2020, if the internet reaches every human being. If that happens, the GDP of China and India could reach $2.089 trillion – nearly a third of the hypothetical world output.
Also, universal internet access can bring half a billion people worldwide out of poverty, according to the report.
High data costs in developing countries
However, data costs in India, as in several other developing countries, are a major barrier.
While 92 percent people in South Asia live in range of a 2G network, no more than 17 percent can afford a 500 MB monthly data plan. Two other regions – sub-Saharan Africa (11 percent) and Middle East and North Africa (17 percent) – are comparable to South Asia. In contrast, 94 percent of North Americans can afford such a data plan.
Prices need to drop by close to 70 percent of todays average retail price for 80 percent of the worlds population, said the report. In Ethiopia, a 500 MB data plan currently costs 50 times what it should for widespread internet affordability. (Widespread is defined as reaching 80 percent of citizens.)
As it stands currently, only two percent Indians can afford to watch a five-minute standard definition video daily. If you add a two-minute HD video as well, less than one percent can afford it.
The report said that in India, internet usage is growing but many are disengaged and many more remain unconnected. According to a February survey by the Pew Research Centre, 22 percent respondents in India said they use the internet at least occasionally or have a smartphone.
But are lower costs possible?
The report cited a JP Morgan analysis to show that Indian data operators make a negative margin of 11 percent from data sales. Giving examples of other developing countries with negative margins, the report said: Operators in most of these markets already charge very low prices and have negative margins on data, which makes it difficult for them to cut prices further.
Indonesias negative margin is 197 percent; in comparison, profit margins in Japan are 46 percent.
In India, nearly 70 percent of connections are on 2G networks, but these data services are no longer profitable for telecom operators. Bharti Airtel, for instance, needs more than 1,000 rural users per site per month to ensure its 2G data services break even. Providing voice services over 2G is more profitable – the company would need no more than 480 subscribers per site per month to break even.
Drawing connections with Zuckerbergs Internet.org agenda?
The study done for Facebook advocates internet access in developing countries, which may be seen as connected to the social media giants controversial Internet.org project. The Guardian observed: The focus on cost reductions (in the report) marries with Facebooks own Internet.org project, which is aimed at partnering carriers in developing nations to give low-cost internet access.
Internet.org had come under criticism from net neutrality advocates around the world. In India, its platform Free Basics was blocked by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in February this year. Founder Mark Zuckerberg had then written: Connecting India is an important goal we wont give up on, because more than a billion people in India dont have access to the internet.
According to the study, which echoed Zuckerbergs thoughts, 56 percent of the world is still not online. Bringing them online would create millions of new jobs, develop vast new markets, and lift millions out of poverty.
(30.05.2016 – In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. Tanay Sukumar is a freelance journalist. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. The author can be contacted at respond@indiaspend.org)
