The Digital India Bill is crucial, as India strives for a $1 trillion digital economy, or 20% of GDP. This new legislation would allow huge internet corporations to operate while being more accountable to the government and safeguarding citizens.
India intends to revise the regulations that control the use of the internet, which may result in significant changes to the ways in which Silicon Valley companies conduct business in the largest market in the world.
A first draft of the new legislation is scheduled to be published in June, and it is anticipated that this document would contain ideas on a wide variety of subjects. The overarching objective of this new law is to create an environment in which large technology companies may continue to function while also being more accountable to the government and protecting people.
During a briefing last Tuesday in Mumbai, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, stated that the current law, which has been in effect for twenty years, is not well suited to accomplish India’s digital economy aim of one trillion dollars or twenty percent of GDP over time.
The reforms will have an effect on how companies like Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. conduct business in a market that the government predicts will grow from its current 830 million users to 1.3 billion users by the year 2025. According to what Chandrasekhar remarked in an interview that took place on the sidelines of the event, India has the greatest online community in the world, and the rest of the world will follow what we do.
Chandrasekhar stated that the administration, which will be up for re-election the following year, intends to put the law into effect by the end of 2023. The following are the primary areas:
Open Internet:
The new legislation will try to clarify what kind of treatment of users is just and does not include discrimination. These might include guidelines about market concentration, the concept of “platform power,” and methods for providing customers with more options.
The nation’s antitrust agency has in recent months levied hefty fines on Google, citing the company’s excessive clout in the mobile industry as the justification for the action. Chandrasekhar stated that the government would consider whether or not the enforcement of some of them should lie with competition law or the Digital India Act. This was in reference to the potential overlap.
Harbor of Refuge: According to the minister, the new law may do away with so-called safe harbor rules in an effort to make internet users recognizable and traceable. The goal of this action is to make it possible to identify and track users of the internet. Because of this, companies that act as intermediaries, such as Twitter and Facebook, might be held legally liable for the content that is published by its users if the companies do not give the government with user identity or traceability when the government requests it.
A similar set of licensing rules to combat online anonymity was included in a proposed law regarding telecommunications a year ago.
Content Monetization:
According to Chandrasekhar, the new legislation would provide a framework on the distribution of money between content creators and platforms. The competition regulator is looking at a similar case that involves publishing news, and it involves news organizations.
The proposed legislation would investigate the possibility of differentiating the standards that apply to various types of platforms, such as e-commerce, social networking, and digital journalism. Although Chandrasekhar has stated that there are no plans to establish an independent digital regulator, this initiative will address concerns such as age restrictions, user rights, and the moderation of “fake news.”
It is anticipated that the upcoming session of parliament would produce yet another bill protecting individuals’ personal data. A national data governance policy as well as a digital competition legislation are currently in the process of being drafted, and modifications to the criminal code are also on the horizon; these developments represent a comprehensive revision of India’s existing digital laws.
