Saturday, November 23, 2013

Social Media And Foreign Websites Must Be Made Amenable To Indian Laws- Praveen Dalal

Social media websites like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitters etc and foreign technology companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc have been operating under the Laws of their jurisdiction i.e. United States. These websites openly deny to be regulated by Indian Laws even though they have significant commercial and business interests in India. Some of them have even subsidiary companies in India but despite this fact Indian Government has failed to regulate them effectively, says Praveen Dalal, managing partner of Perry4Law and the leading techno legal expert of Asia.

These companies can take Indian Laws for granted because Indian Government has not deemed it appropriate to make them Accountable and Amendable to Indian Laws, opines Dalal. However, things may change in the near future. Initially, it was suggested that Internet telephony and VOIP service providers must establish servers in India.

Now the Central Government is working on the formulation of the E-Mail Policy of India. It is contemplating banning private e-mail service providers like G-mail and Yahoo for government communication purposes. Even an advisory by Maharashtra government to use official e-mails, Indian cloud based services, routing traffic through NIXI and section 43 A compliance checks has been issued.

However, G-mail must be banned in India for even private communications as it abets and encourages the commission of cyber crimes in India. Google is openly violating the laws of India by using the façade of conflict of laws and Indian government is taking Google lightly. We need to have techno legal framework in India so that companies like Google cannot take Indian laws for a ride. We also need such techno legal framework so that child pornography can be curbed to the maximum possible extent in India, opines Dalal.

All subsidiary/joint ventures companies in India, especially those dealing in information technology and online environment, must mandatorily establish a Server in India. Otherwise, such companies and their websites should not be allowed to operate in India. A stringent liability for Indian subsidiaries dealing in information technology and online environment must be established by laws of India. More stringent online advertisement and e-commerce provisions must be formulated for Indian subsidiary companies and their websites, opines Dalal.

It is high time for Indian government to consider these recommendations as further delay would not be conducive for the cyberspace environment of India.