The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has come out with a set of regulations explicitly prohibiting differential pricing for mobile data services in India. 3. Prohibition of discriminatory tariffs.— (1) No service provider shall offer or charge discriminatory tariffs for data services on ...

The World Economic Forum (WEF) held its annual meeting at Davos from 20-23 January, 2016. The theme of the meeting was ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’ which referred to advent of new technologies that converge “the physical, digital and biological worlds” to create seamless ‘cyber-physical system...

This author was one of the participants in the strategy meeting at the invitation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation The Strategy Meeting on Catalyzing Reform of Trade Negotiation Processes was held last week in Brussels. Convened by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), it brought a diverse ...

Recommendations 1 & 2 In the weeks leading up to the ICANN 55 Meeting at Marrakech , we are doing a series of posts tracking the CCWG-Accountability process. Through these posts we will be examining all the recommendations and trace their developments since the third draft proposal was opened t...

Cyberspace has been continually emerging as a significant forum of criminal activity that requires specialized monitoring. However, cyber crime cases often go unreported in India further increasing online vulnerability. Even reported cases mostly result in acquittal due to the lack of forensic infra...

The Tallinn Manual [1] , is an elaborate, academic body of work that examines the applicability of international law to cyber conflicts. The Manual was prepared by an International Group of Experts (a group of independent international law scholars and practitioners) at the invitation of the NATO Co...

by sflc_admin | January 22, 2016 SFLC.in will be organizing a cryptoparty on 30th January 2016 at 3pm in its office in Jangpura, Delhi. It will be a hands-on workshop where we teach and learn basic cryptography tools to secure our digital communication, to understand data privacy and mass surveillan...

The 2nd World Internet Conference (WIC) was held in the town of Wuzhen in China from 16th-18th December, 2015. Organized by the Chinese government since 2014, the WIC is China’s attempt to present an alternate vision of internet governance, with its pitch for increased ‘cyber-sovereignty’. This is i...

by sflc_admin | January 20, 2016 So while all of us were busy turning the consultation paper on differential pricing of data services put out by TRAI into a battle ground for Net Neutrality in India, on the sidelines, we decided to checkout Free Basics in action. So we got hold of a Reliance SIM car...

The past month has witnessed a rise in tide of public debate surrounding net neutrality once more, accompanying the release of another Consultation Paper by TRAI, and another AIB video urging public participation in the ongoing consultation process. To add to this mix there has also been an effort f...

By Vidya Dronamraju and Devdutta Mukhopadhyay Breaking away from the conventional damsel in distress trope, the trailer of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest production enticed us with the promise of a powerful warrior heroine in the form of Deepika Padukone’s Mastani. Walking into the theatre, we had h...

The original article was published on The Wire on 5th January, 2016. 308357541_222d1b2e2a_b Plenty of Loose Ends. Credit: Pascal Charest/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 The international community’s attempt to shape a new agenda for the Information Society by taking forward the Declaration of Principles and ...

by sflc_admin | January 14, 2016 Based on the comments received by TRAI on the Consultation Paper on Different Pricing for Data Services , SFLC.in has submitted these counter comments as solicited by TRAI. Below is the full text of the counter comments submitted by TRAI.[ PDF ] Executive Summary The...

In a significant development, Google announced yesterday that it has launched a localized version of its immensely popular video-sharing website YouTube in Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. With this launch, users in these countries will access country-specific homepages. Moreover the architecture of ...

(My thanks to Mr. Apar Gupta for providing this lead through his Twitter feed.) Amidst the noise of the winter session of Parliament last month, a new proposal to regulate online communications was made. On December 7th, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs presented a status report ...

A visibly agitated man once entered the American retail giant Target to inquire why his teenage daughter had been receiving coupons of baby products . A few days later, when the manager of the store called up the man to apologize to him, the father replied that his daughter was infact pregnant. Foll...

The last quarter of 2015 alone witnessed three key events that displayed the diversity of views on internet governance. Namely, the 10th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) , the United Nations WSIS+10 High Level Meeting , and the 2nd World Internet Conference (WIC) in Wuzhen, China. Each of these event...

by sflc_admin | January 8, 2016 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had published a consultation paper on 9 December 2015, seeking opinions from stakeholders on “Differential Pricing of Data Services”. Below is the full text of our submission to TRAI. ( PDF ) Introduction: We thank TRAI for...

by sflc_admin | January 6, 2016 Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client The Mozilla Foundation looks like it’s about to take another step in its bid to sharpen its focus on development around its Firefox browser. Mozilla now wants to once and for all hive off support for Thunder...

by sflc_admin | January 6, 2016 SFLC.in was represented on two of the panels on Global IP Congress 2015 held at National Law School, New Delhi between 15th and 17th of December 2015. Panel on Collaborative Innovations – 16 December 2015 Panelists on Collaborative Innovation at Global IP Congress The...