Internet Governance Archives - Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

Metadata by TLF: Issue 20

Posted on March 14, 2021March 13, 2021 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

Welcome to our fortnightly newsletter, where our reporters Harsh Jain and Harshita Lilani put together handpicked stories from the world of tech law! You can find other issues here, and you can sign up for future editions of the the newsletter here.

Facebook-Australia standoff ends as both parties agree to truce

Facebook has reached an agreement with the Australian Government and will restore news pages in the country days after restricting them. The decision follows negotiations between the tech giant and the Australian Government, which is set to pass a new media law that will require digital platforms to pay for news. The law, if passed, will make digital platforms pay local media outlets and publishers to link their content in news feeds or search results. Under the amendments, the Australian Government will give digital platforms and news publishers two months to mediate and broker commercial deals before subjecting them to mandatory arbitration under the proposed media law. Both Google and Facebook have fought against the media law since last year. Google previously threatened to remove its search service from Australia in response to the proposed law. But the company has since struck commercial deals with local publishers including the Murdoch family-owned media conglomerate News Corp. Facebook, for its part, followed through with a threat to remove news features from Australia.

Facebook and its Oversight Board: Regulatory Attempts in an Impractical Relationship

Posted on March 4, 2021March 27, 2021 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

[Lian Joseph is a fourth-year law student and contributing editor at robos of Tech Law and Policy, a platform for marginalized genders in the technology law and policy field. This essay is part of an ongoing collaboration between r – TLP and the NALSAR Tech Law Forum Blog. Posts in the series may be found here.]

Facebook’s Oversight Board (OB) was instituted to respond to the growing concerns regarding Facebook’s inadequate content moderation standards. The company has been alleged to have proliferated and played an important role in several instances of human right violations, hate and misinformation campaigns related to elections and COVID 19 among other issues. The introduction of the OB – the Facebook Supreme Court, as it has been dubbed – was met with a lot of skepticism, with many arguing that it was an attempt to deflect actual accountability. The Board was established as an independent body with a maximum of 40 members, separate from Facebook’s content review process with the power to review decisions made by the company and suggest changes and recommendations. Notably, the OB will be reviewing cases that are of grave concern and have potential to guide future decisions and policies. Appeals can be made by the original poster or the person who previously submitted it for review or by Facebook itself referring matters.

News Publishers and the Claim for Remuneration: An Analysis (Part II)

Posted on February 19, 2021February 19, 2021 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

[This two-part post has been authored by Soham Chakraborty, a third year student at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. Part I can be found here.]

Part 1 of the article looked at the arguments being made by news publishers and news aggregators. It also looked at various laws passed by different countries in the past and their impacts in the respective countries. This part will attempt to analyze the Australian law in light of the history of such agreements and also tries to make some policy suggestions going forward.

News Publishers and the Claim for Remuneration: An Analysis (Part I)

Posted on February 19, 2021February 19, 2021 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

[This two-part post has been authored by Soham Chakraborty, a third year student at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. Part II can be found here.]

Nowadays, people are likelier to get their daily doses of information online than by reading a newspaper as in decades past. Even when online, research shows that people are more likely to consume their news from social media or by visiting news aggregators like Yahoo News, Google News etc. which include links to news articles from a variety of publishers.

Data Protection in EdTech Start-ups: An Analysis

Posted on January 8, 2021February 18, 2021 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

[This post is authored by Oshi Priya, a third-year student at the National Law University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi.]

Education technology (EdTech) is the means to facilitate e-learning through the combination of software and computer hardware along with educational theory. Though still in its early stages of development, it’s a $700 million industry today in India and is headed for 8-10 times the growth in the next 5 years. Some of the popular EdTech companies in India include Unacademy, BYJU’S, and Toppr, etc.

Regulation of Content on OTT Platforms: An Explainer

Posted on December 21, 2020December 21, 2020 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

[This Explainer has been authored by Harsh Jain and Sankalp Jain of the NALSAR Tech Law Forum Blog.]

The over-the-top (‘OTT’) industry in India has been growing exponentially–faster than anywhere else in the world–and pegged to reach a size of $5 billion by the year 2023. With an increase in internet penetration, coverage and speed, the consumption of content available on OTT streaming services is at an all-time high. This has not only increased the accessibility to titles old and new, but has also created a new avenue for content-creation on diverse themes. As the pandemic led to the closure of movie theatres and other forms of public entertainment, OTT platforms have been growing in India along with the rest of the world.

Metadata by TLF: Issue 19

Posted on December 21, 2020December 20, 2020 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

Welcome to our fortnightly newsletter, where our reporters Harsh Jain and Harshita Lilani put together handpicked stories from the world of tech law! You can find other issues here.

Facebook Oversight Board picks the first batch of cases for review, adds additional matter from India

Facebook’s Oversight Board (OSB), an independent body set up to review moderation decisions by the company, chose 6 cases to review in the first week of December, 2020 from over 20,000 cases that were referred to it following the opening of user appeals in October 20, 2018. Five of the cases being considered by the OSB were referred via user appeals while the sixth arose from a reference by Facebook. A couple of days after announcing the first batch of cases, the OSB added an additional case for consideration from India. It involves a photo posted on a Facebook group with Hindi text describing the drawing a sword from its scabbard in response to “infidels” criticizing the prophet. The photo also included a logo with the words “Indian Muslims” in English. The accompanying text, also in English, includes hashtags calling President Emmanuel Macron of France “the devil” and calling for the boycott of French products.

Examining the Rise of the ‘Splinternet’

Posted on December 10, 2020December 8, 2020 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

[Ed Note: The following post is part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2020-21. It has been authored by Manasvin Andra, a fourth year student of NALSAR University of Law.]

Data localisation laws have been on the rise in recent years. Since Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding the National Security Agency’s PRISM program, states have begun associating informational security with the need to retain data within their territories. The list of countries insisting on data localisation is long, including Brazil, Germany, Russia and South Korea. India is also on the path to adopting localisation norms, primarily through the revised Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019.

Suggestions for Copyright Reforms

Posted on December 4, 2020December 4, 2020 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

[This post has been authored by our reporters – Harsh Jain and Harshita Lilani. They discuss the controversies surrounding Copyright law in India and highlight the recommendations sent by the Technology Law Forum to the Registrar of Copyrights.]

The last amendment to the Indian Copyright Act was made in the year 2012 and therefore, the news that a reform process had begun was a welcome development. However, the fact that the process began with ‘private consultations’ has raised many concerns. The impact of any Copyright Law reform would be far-reaching and, therefore, must involve all stakeholders – authors, industry players, academicians, students, and more. This also means that the reforms must be forward-looking – to be able to anticipate and adapt to changing times.

Open Banking in India & the Need for Setting Uniform Standards in Usage of APIs

Posted on November 20, 2020November 20, 2020 by Tech Law Forum NALSAR

[This post has been authored by Vaibhav Parikh, Legal Counsel at ICICI Bank. Views are personal]

The value of online/ mobile banking rose from INR 69.47 billion in 2016-17 to INR 21,317 billion in 2019-20. Providing data access to third-party firms by banks and other financial institutions has proved to be one of the important reasons for such rapid development in online/ mobile banking, since it has allowed for introduction of innovative financial services and products to customers (Basel Committee Report on Open Banking, Page 8); such as seamless payments transmission between accounts at different banks, instant payments using Unified Payments Interface (“UPI”) and aggregation of all financial accounts onto one dashboard. Gradually, the delivery of financial services and products is also being offered by non-banking third parties, such as fintech firms. These developments are aspects of open banking and are continuously evolving in nature.