Millions of Indians use Google and its myriad web services every day. We do not pay for them, nor have we elected the people who run Google. Google does not have to be accountable to us. In the ‘terms of services’ that we click ‘agree’ on, they could say anything because we do not read it anyway. Yet, Google convened a conference in Budapest in September 2010 to tell Internet...

Number of content removal requests from the country up by 123 per cent Are Indians allowed to use the Internet to criticise politicians and officials? If Google's latest ‘Transparency Report' is any indication, the police in some States don't seem to think so. In the last six months of 2010, law enforcement agencies across India asked the web search company to remove YouTube videos and a blog “that were critical of...

The government is returning to a 1970s mentality. This mentality used a presumptive distrust of citizens as an excuse for enhancing state power. It sought accountability, not through intelligently designed transparency norms, but greater discretionary power in state officials. And finally, it sought to curb citizens’ freedoms, not by directly assaulting them, but by embedding them in a structure of regulation that deters free expression. This mentality connects three recent sets...

Certain provisions in the rules notified under the IT Act cause concern about the security of sensitive personal information. ON April 11, the Union Ministry of Communications and Information Technology notified new rules under the Information Technology Act, 2000, to regulate the use of the Internet. This led to widespread apprehensions that the government and private persons might gain free access to sensitive personal information concerning Internet users. The government, however,...

The joint committee for drafting the Lokpal bill has, among other things, brought much attention to lawmaking itself. What indeed is the process of enacting a law? And what therein are the points of engagement with citizens and civil society? A government bill may be introduced by a minister, and a private member bill by any member of Parliament. We focus here on government bills, as private member bills have rarely...