Law Commission Media Law Consultation – Panel I, Self Regulation v. Statutory Regulation

Posted on by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR
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The following is a post by Shashank Singh, a third year student at NUJS, covering the first panel of the Law Commission’s ongoing Media Law Consultation, Self-Regulation v. Structural Regulation.  Shashank currently serves as Associate Editor for the  NUJS Law Review, and his areas of interest include Constitutional Law, Media Law and IPR. 

The Law Commission of India is currently hosting a two day consultation process on issues concerning media law. This comes in the backdrop of the TRAI’s Recommendations on Ownership of Media released on August 12, 2014. The first panel looked at the much debated topic of Self Regulation v. Structural Regulation. The consultation was attended by journalists, academics and students. Ironically, the notable absence in the entire consultation process were the ‘owners’ who would be most effected from the outcome of any future binding regulation.

This panel consisted of Justice R.V. Raveendran, N. Ram, Ravish Kumar and Vanita Kohli-Khandekar. The panel was moderated by S. Varadrajan.

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The Mirage of Internet Security: A Response to the Bash Bug

Posted on by Kartik Chawla

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Recently in our class on the Law of Evidence, the discussion turned to the security of email accounts, specifically Gmail. Our teacher asked a general question, about how easy it would be for a person to hack a Gmail account, on a scale of 0 (extremely difficult) to 5(extremely easy). There was a smattering of response, ranging between 0 to 1.5.

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Of Facebook and Privacy – Part I: The Constitutional and Tortuous Facets

Posted on by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

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The following post by Samyak Sibasish is the first in a series of posts analysing the effects of Social Media, specifically Facebook, on Privacy. This post focuses on the constitutional and tortuous dimensions of the issue, while the next one will focus on the contractual aspects of it. Samyak is a 3rd year student at NUJS, Kolkata. Apart from being interested in cricket and politics, he spends his time on reading on law and justice systems, more specifically caste. Additionally, being a social media freak, he likes to research on the curious myriad ways the world of social media interacts with the laws that govern it.

Of late, it has been confirmed by media that Facebook has seen a meteoric rise in its number of users over the past decade and if bracketed as a nation, it can be the fourth most populated nation in the world. It is but pertinent to examine how protected is users’ privacy on a social networking forum like Facebook.

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Data Retention Protocols: A Critical Appraisal of the Telecom Surveillance Apparatus in India and Abroad (Part II)

Posted on by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR
The second post in the two-part series on Data Retention laws in India and abroad, by Balaji Subramanian. The first part can be found here.

In Foreign Lands: US and the EU

Earlier, I’ve given a broad picture of the data retention scenario in India. Now, I attempt to draw a comparison between India and other, more “advanced” jurisdictions such as the US and the EU.

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Data Retention Protocols: A Critical Appraisal of the Telecom Surveillance Apparatus in India and Abroad (Part I)

Posted on by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR
The following is the first in a two-post series by Balaji Subramanian on Data Retention, a second-year student at NALSAR. Balaji is quite interested in Technology and Cyber Law, and has worked on issues ranging from Cyber Forensics to Data Retention., interning with CIPRA at NLSIU and Tanikella Rastogi Associates on related issues. 

Descriptively, data retention refers to the gathering and storing of information relating to subscribers’ use of telecommunications networks. This storage happens at a remote location, inaccessible to the user whose activities are the origin of the stored data. Typically, data retention protocols require the continuous collection of certain parameters from internet users and the maintenance of comprehensive records of user activity, in one form or another. Retention can be done at the ISP level, as a commercial decision on the part of the service provider, or at the regulatory level, as a national policy decision on the part of the State in order to achieve larger goals of law enforcement and public order. Over the course of two posts, I will attempt to construct a brief critique of the policies adopted, first narrating the Indian stance and then using contemporary global trends as a yardstick against which this stance can be measured.

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Cross Media Ownership in India: Cause for Concern?

Posted on by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

The following post is by Shashank Atreya, a student of School of Law, Christ University, Bangalore. He is a founding member of the Committee on Public Policy and Governance, School of Law, Christ University, and has headed research panels drafting suggestions to the Parliament Standing Committee and Law Commission. Shashank is a Media Law enthusiast, and vouches for net neutrality. He brings us a detailed analysis  on TRAI’s recent suggestions on Cross Media Ownership, which formed part of it’s recommendations to the Law Commission of India. 

The media plays an important and multiple roles in society. The most obvious of these are collection and dissemination of information, communication and entertainment among the people. Further, through its reach to the people the media also transmits social and cultural values and serves as a medium of education. Thus by providing information the media can inspire and generate political social ideas and aid in shaping policy agenda and priorities.

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Google and Antitrust: A Series of Unfortunate Events

Posted on by Veera Mahuli

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In its long series of antitrust woes, Google found itself facing an antitrust complaint filed by two Korean internet search sites a few years ago, accusing it of blocking third party search applications from the Android operating system, though it was later acquitted of the same. It was this complaint that later led to the European Union complaint. Preceding this, the internet giant was the subject of a complaint regarding Android filed with the European Commission by a Portuguese app store, Aptoide. Aptoide claimed abuse of its dominant position in the smartphone market by Google, accusing it of blocking third party app stores that rival its own app store (Google Play) in the Android operating setup. Thus, by creating obstacles for users to install any other app store but Play on the Android platform, Google ensures that there is no direct competition to it. Aptoide’s complaint also stated that the bundle services that are essential for the functioning of the Android system are tied up with Google Play and Google blocks access to Aptoide websites in its web browser Chrome

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Internet Rights in Africa: A Comment

Posted on by Jitesh Anand

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The Internet is an enabling space. It provides us with the realization of our basic human rights, including the right to freedom of expression, opinion, thought and belief. In this blog post, I have tried to give an overview of the recent developments with regard to the Internet rights in Africa.

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