Beyond the Searchlight

This article Debarshi Dasgupta was published in the Outlook on October 23, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Search Google

Some queries to type in the window

• Is what is good for Google good for India, especially after Brazil and the EU question its actions?
• Are politicians sending out the right signals by associating with Google’s initiatives?
• Is Google directing the internet intellectual discourse in a way that will benefit it?
• Does Google initiate the kind of offline activities it does here in other democracies?
• Is Google shutting out potential competition by obtaining a stranglehold on the internet?

Google’s policy, its CEO Eric Schmidt had once said, was to get right up to the creepy line, but not cross it. It has generated contentious debate about the firm’s activities and products, whether it’s accessing your e-mails to feed you targeted ads, something we have now come to accept grudgingly, or its soon-to-be-rel­eased Google Glass that comes fitted with miniature cameras and has advocates all worried about the next big breach on the privacy frontier.

Not just online, where privacy violations and anti-competitive practices have raised concerns globally, some of Google’s offline activities in India too should have us asking questions based on conflict of interest and lack of transparency. Here too, the company seems to have placed itself right next to the creepy line. Especially the way it has gone about sponsoring research at key think-tanks and academia on areas that direc­tly concern its business interests.

Nothing illustrates this better than the work of PRS Legislative Research, which Google has funded  in the past. PRS produces policy briefi­ngs that are sent out to lawmakers and the media, including on internet governance. PRS hasn’t got a clearance to receive foreign funds since it became independent of the Centre for Policy Research in 2010, where it was launched, and has since then been largely funded by domestic sources.

So big that it hobnobs with Narendra Modi in the first of its Hangout series and, quite contrary to its espousal of free speech, has comfortable questions pitched to him. Or so influential that it has telecom minister Kapil Sibal, its bete noire from 2011 when his ministry was forcing them to pull down content, to attend the launch of chand­nichowkonline.in, a business direct­ory of Sibal’s constituency. Outlook made several attempts to get a reaction from Google but rec­eived none by the time this article had to go to the press.

Blurred lines Paid ads seem no different from search results for cameras

Google, since 2011, has also placed three fellows so far under its annual Google Public Policy Fellowship prog­ramme at the Bangalore-based Cen­tre for Internet and Society (CIS). The research is supposed to focus on “acc­ess to knowledge, openness in India, freedom of expression, pri­vacy, and telecom”. Yet another crucial funding in May 2013 went to the Centre for Communication Gover­na­nce at the National Law University in New Delhi, which does research on areas directly linked to its business interests. The agreement contains a clause that says “Google will not be excluded from any future business opportunities”. Its research director Chi­n­mayi Arun did not respond to Outlook’s e-mail and said she was too busy to speak when Outlook called her up.

So just as it is necessary to publicise that Shell has ties with the India chapter of Brookings Institution or that Reliance sponsors the Observer Resea­rch Foundation, it is important that people know where Google is putting its money and for what gains. In fact, more so in the case of Google, a firm that touches our lives in so many more ways that Shell or Reliance does. Yet, a lot of what Google has been doing has gone without adequate publicity and scrutiny. Should we be any less sceptical of Google funding resea­rch that helps formulate policies on internet governance than we should be of, let’s say, the Tatas and Jindals on mining? “Google has huge money and its funding of research can be a very contentious issue, especially if it seeks to influence resea­rch. Therefore, parties who swear by full disclosure and transparency must adhere to it,” says senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. “More transpare­ncy and accountability can only be good, both for Google and the organisations it funds,” adds Anja Kovacs, who works with the Internet Democracy Project.

The great connector Hangout with Narendra Modi

But there has been little of that transparency online. For instance, the Rules and Regulations Review of The Infor­mation Technology Rules, 2011, put out and sent to MPs by PRS Legislative Research has no mention that an interested party (Google) has funded its work. Similarly, The Hoot has no mention of Google funding it on the ‘About the Hub’ page even though it has details of Google’s funding on the ‘Support The Hoot’ page. Google has also funded numerous ngos, in areas such as health and education, and has sought to promote the use of technology (often theirs, such as in the ongoing Google Impact Challenge Award).

For many, Google crossed the creepy line when it declared, in a court filing in August this year, that people sending e-mails to any of Google’s 425 million Gmail users need have no “reasonable expectation” that their communications are confidential. This is something that concerns Sunil Abraham, the executive director of CIS, which hosts Google fellows but has received no funding from the firm. “India has no omnibus horizontal statutes, neither sufficiently evolved vertical statutes in specific areas of telecommunication or the internet,” he says. “And because of that there is no office of the privacy commissioner in India and the absence of this regulator doesn’t tame the voracious appetite that Google has for personal information. This happens in other jurisdictions, but the Indian citizen is left vulnerable to Google when it comes to privacy.” “Part of Google’s practice can be absolutely abhorrent, such as the way in which it seeks to have a monopoly in digitising information and being the only one to organise it,” adds Kovacs.

Amitabh Bachchan Google maps his home at WEF in Davos

Another controversial move online has been the decision between Airtel and Google to allow the former’s subscribers free usage of Google’s service up to 1 GB. This has thrown up concerns of violation of “network neutrality”, a widely acknowledged concept that requires internet service providers to not discriminate against third party applications and service.

The outreach Sibal attends the launch of chandnichowkonline, a business directory of his constituency; Qutub Minar, digitised

Criticising or questioning some of Google’s policies does not amount to siding with the government on cracking down on free speech on the internet. Outlook ran a cover in December 2011 where it was severely critical of the government’s atte­mpt to muzzle online dissent. Neither does concern about Google’s activities stem from a fear of the foreign hand. Its expansion into Indian civil society has to be seen as an attempt by a profits-driven corporation to ensure its market interests in India are protected. The country becomes all the more important given the trouble it has been having in Brazil and in Europe, where the firm has been slapped with a slew of anti-trust charges. Keeping a close watch will only help enforce Google’s policy in India—not crossing the creepy line.