Friday, Apr 26, 2024 | Last Update : 10:42 PM IST

Rohan Seth

Weaken/remove encryption, and Facebook will instantly be branded Orwellian. Enforce encryption, and it becomes a lot harder to deal with bad actors on the platform. There are no winners here.

Tech This Week | Facebook services integration comes with trade-offs

Once WhatsApp and Instagram (and Oculus) became sufficiently big, it was time to integrate these properties into the larger Facebook machine

04 Oct 2020 10:32 PM

Beverly Hills Polo Club (BHPC) approached the Competition Commission of India, claiming that Amazon had been indulging in anti-competitive practices.

Tech This Week | The need for anti-trust reform

Earlier this month, CCI dismissed an anti-trust case against Amazon.

29 Sep 2020 4:57 PM

ARM has a significant market share in network infrastructure, mobile computing processors, vehicles, and energy-efficient servers. (Photo | Flickr - Socram8888)

Tech This Week | With ARM in kitty, Nvidia most impressive firm you never heard of

This deal is going to serve as an important development in the chip war being waged between the US and China.

19 Sep 2020 8:01 PM

The government should work promptly on consulting with industry players and civil society on changes that are required in the draft rules for e-pharmacies and notify them on priority. (Photo | Pixabay - Steve Buissinne)

Tech This Week | Regulating online pharmacies must be an inclusive exercise

The draft amendments and the e-pharmacy space needs to be more platform friendly as we advance.

12 Sep 2020 8:39 PM

No one ever is happy with the current amount of content moderation that platforms are undertaking. Some people think it is too little, while others think it is too much.

Tech This Week | Should India have its own social media content moderation rules?

Platforms are diverse and a one-size-fits-all approach will not work.

05 Sep 2020 6:03 PM

The government has been keen on enabling partnerships between e-commerce companies and kirana stores to ensure better last mile delivery of goods.

Tech This Week | Amazon and Flipkart make lockdowns effective

The government has learned and moved on to appreciate the role of e-commerce in keeping citizens safe.

29 Aug 2020 4:37 PM

The CCI’s basis for dismissal of the anti-trust case against Whatsapp is that UPI payments apps are an evolving market. But it does not appreciate the power of network effects and convenience enough. Yes, the payments feature is not going to be coerced onto users, but if Facebook’s history is anything to go by, it might not make a difference.

Tech This Week | The UPI payments space is in for its biggest shift yet

Earlier this week, the Competition Commission of India dismissed an anti-trust case against WhatsApp Pay.

22 Aug 2020 2:45 PM

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology published a programme that outlines incentives that focus on electronics manufacturing (of which semiconductors are a subset). However, none of the above has translated into a significant shift that puts India at a comparative advantage when it comes to semiconductor manufacturing. (Photo | Pixabay - Mika Mamy)

Tech This Week | Forget TikTok, what India must focus on is semiconductors

Where India could have leverage with China is not in manipulating ByteDance’s revenues but if it got into the semiconductor space.

15 Aug 2020 4:04 PM

Companies providing goods and services that differ from the competition through application of non-personal data stand to lose their comparative advantage if the data is treated as a public good. (Photo | Flickr - Kevin Zollman)

Tech This Week | India needs to be more mindful in regulating non-personal data

If non-personal data is made subject to mandatory sharing, data businesses will begin classifying such data as personal.

08 Aug 2020 6:24 PM

Pressure has been growing both from the right and the left—and sometimes internally—to do something about the overwhelming dominance of the internet platforms. In this photo, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos. The four CEOs on Wednesday attended an antitrust hearing of the US House Judiciary Committee. (Photo | AFP)

Tech This Week | What we learned from the US antitrust inquiry

Lawmakers seem to be catching up with technology and so will regulation, so Big Tech should not take things for granted.

01 Aug 2020 4:17 PM

No other app store has entry barriers like Apple does. Developers can even choose to sidestep Google's Play Store to get to Android users but can't do the same with Apple.

Tech This Week | Apple’s anti-trust hearing may be an exercise in cross talking

Apple's app store holds a monopoly on iOS and as such app developers have no option but to pay the platform's commission to reach iOS users.

25 Jul 2020 6:49 PM

The need of the hour is to put more power back in the hands of the users, and that begins with fiduciaries being more transparent with personal data. (Photo | Pixabay - Mohamed Hassan)

Tech This Week | The Personal Data Protection Bill in the context of the Twitter hack

When it comes to data breaches, the bill does not do nearly enough to put power back in the hands of the users.

18 Jul 2020 6:50 PM

There is a strong tendency within the Government to view data as a national asset, akin to say, the Indian Railways. This has been an inherent line of reasoning in multiple draft and actual policies. (Photo | Pixabay - Gerd Altmann)

Tech This Week | Data is not national wealth, must not be regulated in same manner

Value is derived from data is because it is shared. That’s a key reason why technology evolved into a multi-trillion dollar global industry.

11 Jul 2020 9:33 PM

The state has superseded internet exceptionalism and instead used it as a weapon. (Photo | Pixabay - Gerd Altmann)

Tech This Week | Banning TikTok is another nail on coffin of internet exceptionalism

The action against Chinese Apps is not about data protection but is a political manoeuvre.

04 Jul 2020 10:44 PM

A small grocery store (Photo | Wikimedia Commons - Naman Bhagat)

Tech This Week | Encouraging small sellers to get online must be a policy priority

One of the best ways to make that happen is to provide the right incentives to MSME sellers to go online

21 Jun 2020 4:59 PM

We are still not yet sure what does and does not belong on the internet when it comes to coronavirus.

Tech This Week | Now is the time for misinformation reform

Because of liberal laws based on principles of free speech on most dominant online platforms, misinformation is often allowed to stay up.

13 Jun 2020 7:31 PM

One of the fastest-growing apps on the Play Store was called ‘Remove China Apps’ and did exactly what the name suggested. While the App has since then been removed from the Play Store for violating Google’s policies, its existence and function hurt India’s best interests in the name of helping it. Eliminating or banning a competitor is inherently bad for competition and does Indian consumers a disservice.

Removing Chinese apps from your phone is the opposite of self-reliance

Several Indian startups such as Paytm, Swiggy, Zomato, Ola and BigBasket have Chinese investors. Shunning the apps hurts Indian startups.

08 Jun 2020 4:07 PM

There is an inherent bias against Tiktok because it is Chinese. There are suspicions that TikTok’s parent ByteDance is connected to the Communist Party. There is also the data sovereignty argument, where Indian data is shared with Chinese companies.

Tech This Week | #BanTikTok Solves Nothing

Indians spent over 5.5 billion hours on TikTok, which is more than the next eleven countries combined

30 May 2020 4:02 PM

, the majority of people in the informal sector who do not have a job anymore, suddenly have a lot more time and attention to spare. Inevitably, more than a significant part of this goes to streaming content.

Tech This Week | Advertising a tax on the poor, pandemic going to exacerbate it

Many don’t have jobs now but the book Poor Economics says they could trade off a little food for entertainment. So they’ll bear the brunt.

25 May 2020 7:52 PM

Facebook and other online platforms have been trying to minimise hate speech on social media, by getting content moderated.

Why India needs to be the centre for content moderation reform

A significant number of moderators for most platforms are contracted through companies such as Cognizant, Genpact, and Accenture.

16 May 2020 3:10 PM

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Sunil Gatade