Centre for Internet and Society

April Newsletter

praskrishna — 2011-06-03T09:52:27Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/publications-automated/april-11.pdf

April 2019 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2019-09-04T14:36:41Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for April 2019.

Highlights for March 2019

The unprecedented growth of the fintech space in India has concomitantly come with regulatory challenges around inter alia privacy and security concerns. Aayush Rathi and Shweta Mohandas have co-authored a report which has analysed the privacy policies of 48 fintech companies operating in India to better understand some of these concerns.
In today’s increasingly digitized world where an increasing volume of information is being stored in the digital format, access to data generated by digital technologies and on digital platforms is important in solving crimes online and offline. One such mechanism for international cooperation is the Convention on Cybercrime adopted in Budapest (“Budapest Convention”). Vipul Kharbanda has provided a deeper analysis on this in his research paper.
CIS has responded to ICANN's proposed renewal of .org Registry. CIS has found severe issues with the proposed agreement. These centre around the removal of price caps and imposing obligations being currently deliberated in an ongoing Policy Development Process. Akriti Bopanna drafted the response.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion released a draft e-commerce policy in February for which stakeholder comments were sought. CIS responded to the request for comments.
CIS Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) has submitted its proposal form for the year 2019 - 2020 to the Wikimedia Foundation. CIS thanks all community members who gave valuable suggestions and inputs for drafting this proposal.
In 2017–2018, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and Google collaborated to start a pilot project in India, working closely with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and the Wikimedia Indiachapter (WMIN). This project, titled Project Tiger was aimed at encouraging Wikipedia communities to create locally relevant and high-quality content in Indian languages. CIS-A2K team submitted Project Tiger final report.
The r@w blog features works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media and society, and highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme at CIS. On the r@w blog we featured an essay titled 'The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination' by Divij Joshi, as part of a series on Studying Internet in India (2015); and audio recording of a session titled #ObjectsofDigitalGovernance by Khetrimayum Monish Singh, Rajiv K. Mishra, and Vidya Subramanian which was part of the Internet Researchers Conference, 2017.

Jobs

CIS is hiring:

CIS-A2K Finance Officer: Call for application (Only women candidates).
Internship - applications accepted throughout the year.

CIS and the News

The following news pieces were authored by CIS and published on its website in January:

Delayed Cash Flows and NPAs (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; April 3, 2019).
To preserve freedoms online, amend the IT Act (Gurshabad Grover; April 16, 2019).
Digital Native: Getting through an election made for the social media gaze (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 21, 2019).

CIS in the News

CIS was quoted in these news articles published elsewhere:

Reddit, Telegram among websites blocked in India, say internet groups (Sai Sachin Ravikumar; Business Standard; April 3, 2019).
Data leaks could wreak havoc in India, so why aren’t they an issue this election? (Aria Thaker; Quartz India; April 4, 2019).
Cookies, not the monster you may think (Sweta Akundi; Hindu; April 8, 2019).
TikTok craze a ticking time bomb for city (Gulam Jeelani with inputs from Priyanka Sharma and Ajay Kumar; India Today; April 17, 2019).
Almost every social network has a porn problem—so why is India banning only TikTok? (Ananya Bhattacharya; Quartz India; April 19, 2019).
Child protection and cyber-grooming: Indian court rescinds its own Tiktok ban (Leon Kaiser; Netzpolitik.org; April 24, 2019).

Access to Knowledge

Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Wikipdedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Project Proposal / Reports

Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Report (Gopala Krishna A; April 5, 2019).

CIS-A2K proposal to Wikimedia Foundation for 2019-2020 (Ananth Subray; April 15, 2019).

Blog Entries

Wikimedia projects orientation session at Tata Trust's Vikas Anvesh Foundation (Subodh Kulkarni; April 9, 2019).
Indic Wikisource Speak: Sushant Savla (Jayanta Nath; April 10, 2019).
SVG Translation Workshop at KBC North Maharashtra University (Subodh Kulkarni; April 10, 2019).
Content Donation Sessions with Authors (Subodh Kulkarni; April 10, 2019).
Indic Wikisource speak : Ajit Kumar Tiwari (Jayanta Nath; April 11, 2019).

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

Cyber Security

Research Paper

International Cooperation in Cybercrime: The Budapest Convention (Vipul Kharbanda; April 29, 2019).

Privacy

Research Paper

FinTech in India: A Study of Privacy and Security Commitments (Aayush Rathi and Shweta Mohandas; April 30, 2019).

Submission

CIS Response to Call for Stakeholder Comments: Draft E-Commerce Policy (Arindrajit Basu, Vipul Kharbanda, Elonnai Hickok and Amber Sinha; April 10, 2019).

Participation in Events

IETF 104 Prague (Organized by IETF; Prague; March 23 - 29, 2019). Karan Saini and Gurshabad Grover participated in the event.
The Phantom Public: The Role of Social Media in Democracy (Organized by Ambedkar University; New Delhi; April 3, 2019).
(re) conference (Organized by CREA; New Delhi; April 10 - 12, 2019).
Data for Development: Mapping key considerations for policy and practice in India (Organized by Azim Premchand University; April 24, 2019). Arindrajit Basu delivered a talk.

Artificial Intelligence

Participation in Event

Policy Lab on Artificial Intelligence & Democracy (Organized by Tandem Research, in partnership with Microsoft Research and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung; Bangalore; April 2-3, 2019). Shweta Mohandas participated in the event.

Free Speech and Expression

Submission

CIS Response to ICANN's proposed renewal of .org Registry (Akriti Bopanna; April 28, 2019).

Event Organized

Internet Speech: Perspectives on Regulation and Policy ( Organized by CIS; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi; April 5, 2019).

Blog Entry

DIDP #33 On ICANN's 2012 gTLD round auction fund (Akriti Bopanna; April 4, 2019).

Researchers at Work (RAW)

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Announcement

Call for Essays: Studying Internet in India (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; April 6, 2019).

Blog Entries

The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination (Divij Joshi; April 21, 2019).
#ObjectsOfDigitalGovernance (Khetrimayum Monish Singh, Rajiv K. Mishra, and Vidya Subramanian; April 21, 2019).

Telecom

Article

Delayed Cash Flows and NPAs (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; April 3, 2019 and Organizing India Blogspot; April 4, 2019).

Participation in Event

BIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services (Organized by Broadband India Forum; Taj Mahal Hotel, Mansingh Road, New Delhi; April 5, 2019). Anubha Sinha was a panellist at a BIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services”.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2019-newsletter

April 2018 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-05-20T14:57:47Z

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
In 2016, WhatsApp Inc announced it was rolling out end-to-end encryption, but is the company doing what it claims to be doing? Sunil Abraham and Aayush Rathi explores this in an article which was published in Asia Times on April 20, 2018. CIS submitted comments to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India on the draft Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act on April 21, 2018. CIS had conducted research on the issues of privacy, data protection and data security since 2010 and is thankful for the opportunity to put forth its views. A blog post by Swaraj Paul Barooah examines two badly drafted provisions of the new Anti-Trafficking bill that have the potential to severely impinge upon the Freedom of Expression, including through a misunderstanding of intermediary liability. A chapter by P.P. Sneha was published in 'Making Things and Drawing Boundaries: Experiments in the Digital Humanities' edited by Jentery Sayers. The chapter throws light on some of the questions that arise around the processes by which digital objects are ‘made’ and made available for arts and humanities research and practice, by drawing on recent work in text and film archival initiatives in India. CIS made a submission to the Indian Patent Office on the issue of Statement of Working as per Form 27 under the Patents Act, 1970. Select stakeholders were invited to the consultation meeting held on April 6, 2018. Anubha Sinha attended it along with a few other public-spirited stakeholders. She made a statement stressing on the requirement of the patent system to serve the welfare-purpose and not create mere non-working/ blocking monopolies; and that the argument of representatives of patentees about non-working of patents being the existing norm, and that they cannot be questioned about this, is absolutely against the central tenets of patent law.

Highlights

In 2016, WhatsApp Inc announced it was rolling out end-to-end encryption, but is the company doing what it claims to be doing? Sunil Abraham and Aayush Rathi explores this in an article which was published in Asia Times on April 20, 2018.
CIS submitted comments to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India on the draft Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act on April 21, 2018. CIS had conducted research on the issues of privacy, data protection and data security since 2010 and is thankful for the opportunity to put forth its views.

A blog post by Swaraj Paul Barooah examines two badly drafted provisions of the new Anti-Trafficking bill that have the potential to severely impinge upon the Freedom of Expression, including through a misunderstanding of intermediary liability.

A chapter by P.P. Sneha was published in 'Making Things and Drawing Boundaries: Experiments in the Digital Humanities' edited by Jentery Sayers. The chapter throws light on some of the questions that arise around the processes by which digital objects are ‘made’ and made available for arts and humanities research and practice, by drawing on recent work in text and film archival initiatives in India.
CIS made a submission to the Indian Patent Office on the issue of Statement of Working as per Form 27 under the Patents Act, 1970. Select stakeholders were invited to the consultation meeting held on April 6, 2018. Anubha Sinha attended it along with a few other public-spirited stakeholders. She made a statement stressing on the requirement of the patent system to serve the welfare-purpose and not create mere non-working/ blocking monopolies; and that the argument of representatives of patentees about non-working of patents being the existing norm, and that they cannot be questioned about this, is absolutely against the central tenets of patent law.

Articles:

Digital Native: Delete Facebook? (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 8, 2018).

Digital Native: The e-wasteland of our times (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 22, 2018).
What’s up with WhatsApp? (Aayush Rathi and Sunil Abraham; Asia Times; April 23, 2018).

CIS in the News:

Cambridge Analytica row: Facebook data breach hit 560K Indian users (Vidhi Choudhury and Yashwant Raj; Hindustan Times; April 5, 2018).
Govt websites face major outage; hacking ruled out (Hindu Businessline; April 6, 2018).
After data leak row, Facebook imposes restrictions on user data access (Romita Majumdar and Kiran Rathee; Business Standard; April 6, 2018).
It Took Just 355 Indians to Mine the Data of 5.6 Lakh Facebook Users. Here's How (CNN-News 18; April 7, 2018).
It feeds on you! (Anita Babu; The Week; April 8, 2018).
Pension won’t be denied for want of Aadhaar, says EPFO (Prashant K. Nanda and Komal Gupta; Livemint; April 11, 2018).
Facebook’s fake news clean-up hits language barrier (Nilesh Christopher; Economic Times; April 13, 2018).
Is This The Beginning Of The End For Facebook? (Bloomberg Quint; April 15, 2018).
Metrolife: Brutality porn has sadly many takers in India (Nina C. George; Deccan Herald; April 18, 2018).
Aadhaar data of over 89 lakh MNREGA workers in Andhra Pradesh leaked online (New Indian Express; April 27, 2018).
You Are Not the Only One: India stares at a loneliness epidemic (Asad Ali and Tabassum Barnagarwala; Indian Express; April 29, 2018).
Now, Twitter too caught up in Cambridge Analytica controversy (Prasun Sonwalkar and Vidhi Choudhury; Hindustan Times; April 30, 2018).

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Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------
Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Copyright and Patent

Submission

CIS' Submission on Statement of Working of Patents (Anubha Sinha; April 10, 2018).

►Wikipedia

Event Organized

Sambad Health and Women Edit-a-thon (April 15, 2018).

Blog Entries

Telugu Wikisource Feature Book in Pustakam.net (Pavan Santhosh; April 17, 2018).
Institutional Partnership with Tribal Research & Training Institute (Subodh Kulkarni; April 18, 2018).
Exploring Wikimedia platforms in Dialogue on the Urban Rivers of Maharashtra (Subodh Kulkarni; April 22, 2018).

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Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Submission

Comments on the Draft Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act (Amber Sinha and Shweta Mohandas; April 22, 2018).

Analysis

Revenge Porn Laws across the World (Shradha Nigam; April 25, 2018).

Blog Entries

Government gives free publicity worth 40k to Twitter and Facebook (Akriti Bopanna; April 10, 2018).

Artificial Intelligence in Governance: A Report of the Roundtable held in New Delhi (Saman Goudarzi and Natallia Khaniejo; April 19, 2018).

►Free Speech and Expression

Blog Entries

A look at two problematic provisions of the draft Anti-trafficking bill (Swaraj Paul Barooah; April 21, 2018).

DIDP Request #29 - Revenue breakdown by source for FY 2017 (Akriti Bopanna; April 26, 2018).

►Cyber Security

Event Organized

Workshop on Python (April 14, 2018; CIS, Bengaluru).

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Researchers at Work
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Article

Making Humanities in the Digital: Embodiment and Framing in Bichitra and Indiancine.ma (P.P. Sneha; Making Things and Drawing Boundaries: Experiments in the Digital Humanities (2017), edited by Jentery Sayers, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London April 1, 2018).

-----------------------------------

About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2018-newsletter

April 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T12:59:17Z

Welcome to the CIS newsletter for April 2017.

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
In a report on the information security practices of Aadhaar, Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali documented numerous instances of publicly available Aadhaar numbers along with other personally identifiable information of individuals on government websites. CIS along with like minded organizations made a submission to the Government of India to frame a feasible accessibility guidelines for mobile apps since there is no single standard in existence at the moment. A two-day 100 Women Edit-a-thon was held in March 2017 by CIS-A2K team along with Odisha's biggest newspaper Sambad. The event was inspired by BBC’s 100 Women series and edit-a-thons with the same name in December 2016. More than 20 female journalists participated and registered as new Odia Wikipedians. On March 31, 2017, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Personnel and Training released a Circular framing rules under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (“RTI Rules”). The Ministry invited comments on on the RTI Rules. CIS submitted its comments. In an article originally published in Hindu Businessline on March 31, Sunil Abraham lists out 11 reasons why Aadhaar is not just non-smart but also insecure. Shuttleworth Foundation has announced Sunil Abraham as Honorary Steward for its September 2017 fellowship round. CIS worked on a three part case study. The first case study on digital protection of traditional knowledge was published by GIS Watch in December 2016. The other two case studies along with the synthesis overview has also been published.

CIS in the news:

NGOs, individuals urge state CMs to curb Internet shutdown (The Times of India; April 4, 2017).
India’s National ID Program May Be Turning The Country Into A Surveillance State (Pranav Dixit; BuzzFeed News; April 4, 2017).
Privacy, what? Bengaluru police leaks 46,000 phone numbers on Twitter (Neha Vashishth; India Today; April 6, 2017).

Bengaluru cops' twitter handle in ethical storm (Umesh Yadav; The Times of India; April 6, 2017).

Opposition questions govt move to make Aadhaar must (Komal Gupta; Livemint; April 12, 2017).
Aadhaar: A widening net (Komal Gupta, Apurva Vishwanath and Suranjana Roy; Livemint; April 21, 2017).
Chemistry research in India 'still not in big league' (IANS and India Online News Portal; April 24, 2017).
Stop the Haphazard Internet Shutdown Says MP Jay Panda (Regina Mihindukulasuriya; Businessworld; April 26, 2017).
Now, Aadhaar details displayed in Mizoram too (Sebastian P.T.; National Herald; April 26, 2017).
After SPB-Ilaiyaraaja, Sony Music and Sun Network lock horns over copyrights (Priyanka Thirumurthy; Newsminute; April 26, 2017).
Analysis: Data Protection in India - Getting It Right (Suparna Goswami and Varun Haran; Info Risk Today; April 26, 2017).
India bans social media in Kashmir for one month (Telegraph; April 27, 2017).
J&K social media ban: Use of 132-year-old Act can’t stand judicial scrutiny, say experts (Shruti Dhapola; Indian Express; April 28, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles:

How Aadhaar compromises privacy? And how to fix it? (Sunil Abraham; Hindu; April 1, 2017).
Digital native: You can check out, you can never leave (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 2, 2017).
Aadhaar marks a fundamental shift in citizen-state relations: From ‘We the People’ to ‘We the Government’ (Pranesh Prakash; Hindustan Times; April 3, 2017).
It’s the technology, stupid (Sunil Abraham; Hindu Businessline; April 7, 2017).
Privacy in the Age of Big Data (Amber Sinha; Asian Age; April 10, 2017).
Digital native: Are You Still Having Fun? (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 17, 2017).
Digital native: Snap out of outrage mode (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 30, 2017).

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Accessibility & Inclusion
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India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

Submission

Mobile Accessibility Practices (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 12, 2017).

Event

Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2017 (Organized by Prakat Solutions, Mithra Jyothi and CIS; Bengaluru; May 18, 2017).

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Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------
Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Wikipedia

Blog Entries

Note: All the following events were held earlier but the reports were published in the month of April:

Women's Day Edit-a-thon at Jeewan Jyoti Women's Empowerment Centre, Pune (Subodh Kulkarni; April 10, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Savitribai Phule Mahila Ekatma Samaj Mandal, Aurangabad (Subodh Kulkarni; April 13, 2017).
Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: January iteration (Pavan Santhosh; April 15, 2017).
Telugu Wikipedia stall at Vijayawada Book Festival (Pavan Santhosh; April 15, 2017).
Women's Day Edit-a-thon at Jnana Prabodhini (Subodh Kulkarni; April 15, 2017).
Bargarh Manuscript Digitisation Project (Sailesh Patnaik; April 16, 2017).
Imperial College Orientation Program, Bargarh (Sailesh Patnaik; April 16, 2017).
Orientation & Training session for Environmental Activists in Satara (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahu College, Kolhapur (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Shivaji University, Kolhapur (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Sangli, Maharashtra (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
Orientation & Training session of Jalbiradari Activists (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
"Free-license Wings To Your Books" in Guntur (Pavan Santhosh; April 16, 2017).
"Free-license Wings To Your Books" in Vijayawada (Pavan Santhosh; April 16, 2017).
Adikavi Nannaya University Telugu Wikipedia Workshop (Pavan Santhosh; April 16, 2017).
Odia Wikipedia Workshop in IIMC, Dhenkanal (Sailesh Patnaik; April 17, 2017).
Sambad 100 Women Edit-a-thon (Ting Yi Chang and Sailesh Patnaik; April 18, 2017).
Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: February iteration (Pavan Santhosh; April 18, 2017).

►Copyright and Patent

National Conference on Intellectual Property Rights and Public Interest (Organized by Indian Law Institute; New Delhi; April 7 - 8, 2017). Maggie Huang took part in the event.

►Openness

Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

Publication

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in India: Opportunities for Advocacy in Intellectual Property (Sunil Abraham and Vidushi Marda; GIS Watch and Association for Progressive Communications; April 23, 2017). Total 4 reports: Synthesis Overview, Access to Mobile Technology, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, and FOSS and Open Standards.

Submission

Comments on the Right to Information Rules, 2017 (Amber Sinha; April 27, 2017).

Event Organized

NASA Space Apps Challenge 2017 (CIS, Bengaluru, April 22, 2017).

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Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Blog Entries

Analysis of Key Provisions of the Aadhaar Act Regulations (Amber Sinha; April 3, 2017).
Right to be Forgotten: A Tale of Two Judgements (Amber Sinha; April 7, 2017).

►Free Speech and Expression

Blog Entries

Killing of Yameen Rasheed Reveals Worsening Human Rights Situation in the Maldives (Pranesh Prakash; April 25, 2017).
Internet Shutdowns in 2016 (Japreet Grewal; April 27, 2016).

►Miscellaneous

Blog Entry

Regulating Bitcoin in India (Vipul Kharbanda; April 20, 2017).

Event

Amutha Arunachalam - Stand Shielded of Digital Rights (CIS; New Delhi; May 5, 2017).

Participation in Event

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 27 Meetings (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; University of Waikato and Novotel; New Zealand; April 18 - 25, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari attended the meetings.

►Cyber Security

Event Organized

Dr. Madan M. Oberoi - Digital Forensics and Cyber Investigations (CIS; New Delhi; April 7, 2017).

Participation in Event

Brainstorming Session on the Global Conference on Cyberspace (GCCS 2017) (Organized by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology; New Delhi; April 12, 2017). Japreet Grewal attended the session.

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► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2017-newsletter

April 2016 Newsletter

sunil — 2016-05-10T06:26:09Z

Welcome to the CIS newsletter for April 2016. The key issues we worked on this month included the Aadhaar Act 2016, Standard Essential Patents, cyber security of smart grids, and involvement of international agencies in the smart cities project in India.

Early last year, thanks to the fund raising efforts of a friend of CIS - Suhail Kazi, we received Rs. 1.9 lakhs as donations from 19 individuals. In January this year, we set up an online giving feature on our website which would ease the donation process, but we haven’t got a single donation so far! This could be because many of you may be under a false impression that CIS is very wealthy and does not need more support. Unfortunately, this is no longer true. Today, we are unable to find a single donor who is interested in our Accessibility, Telecom, or RAW programmes. In other words, we need your support. Would you to consider making a small donation to CIS? Click here to donate.

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Highlights
CIS prepared an FAQ on the Aadhaar / UIDAI project and the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016. Further, two infographics were produced to highlight on the questions of "Can the Aadhaar Act 2016 be Classified as a Money Bill?" and "Can the Matters Dealt with in the Aadhaar Act be the Objects of a Money Bill?". NVDA team prepared a report on the progress of the project for the month of April 2016. CIS submitted its comments to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion's Discussion Paper on Standard Essential Patents and their Availability on FRAND Terms. CIS has offered its assistance on other matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards the sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India. A summary of the comments can be accessed here. Responses to the Discussion Paper is available here. Rohini Lakshané's paper titled Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey has been accepted for publication by the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. Kiran A.B. in a blog post has documented the availability and openness of data sets in India that are relevant for monitoring the targets under the SDGs. Low-cost Aakash tablet and its previous iterations in India have gone through several phases of technological changes and ideological experiments wrote Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Jahnavi Phalkey in an article published in the Economic and Political Weekly.

-----------------------------------
CIS in the News
-----------------------------------

CIS gave inputs to the following media coverage:

India's biometric database crosses billion-member mark (AFP and Daily Mail, UK; April 4, 2016).
The Panama Papers and the question of privacy (Big News Network; April 6, 2016). This was originally published by Privacyinternational.org.
Daunting task ahead for investigative agencies with WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption (Neha Alawadhi; Economic Times; April 8, 2016).
PMO’s no to smart cards, insists on Aadhaar (Somesh Jha; Hindu; April 10, 2016).
2014 showed the power of Twitter, now every Indian politician wants a handle (T.V. Jayan, Smitha Verma,Sonia Sarkar and V. Kumara Swamy; Telegraph; April 10, 2016).
Why is the UIDAI cracking down on individuals that hoard Aadhaar data? (Alnoor Peermohamed; Business Standard; April 13, 2016).
You will need a license to create a WhatsApp group in Kashmir (Governance Now; April 19, 2016).
Will Facebook, Twitter relocate servers to India? (Taru Bhatia; Governance Now; April 23, 2016).
Government keeps experts out of cyber security discussions (Amrita Madhukalya; DNA; April 23, 2016).
CCTV plays Sherlock (Raj Shekhar, Arun Dev, V Narayan & A Selvaraj with inputs from Sindhu Kannan and Somreet Bhattacharya; The Times of India; April 24, 2016).

CIS members wrote the following pieces:

Sunil Abraham wrote an article in the July 15 edition of Frontline arguing that the Aadhaar project’s technological design and architecture is an unmitigated disaster and no amount of legal fixes in the Act will make it any better.
Amber Sinha wrote an article in The Wire arguing that the Aaddhaar Act is not a money bill, and the Supreme Court may very well question the decision by the Lok Sabha speaker to classify it as such.
Sumandro Chattapadhyay also wrote on The Wire arguing that "the last chance for a welfare state doesn’t rest in the Aadhaar system."
Subhashish Panigrahi's article on the 8 challenges that Indian language Wikipedias have to overcome was published by Global Voices. The article had earlier been published in the Wire.
Elonnai Hickok and Vanya Rakesh co-authored an article on Cyber Security of Smart Grids in India that was published by Dataquest.
Shyam Ponappa in his monthly column published in the Business Standard tell us that it's time the government accepts that current policies are not enough to bring about Digital India.

►NVDA and eSpeak

►Pervasive Technologies

Comments

Comments on Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Discussion Paper on Standard Essential Patents and their Availability on Frand Terms (Anubha Sinha, Nehaa Chaudhari and Rohini Lakshané; April 23, 2016).
Responses to the DIPP's Discussion Paper on SEPs and their Availability on FRAND Terms (Anubha Sinha, Nehaa Chaudhari and Rohini Lakshané; April 23, 2016).
Summary of CIS Comments to DIPP’s Discussion Paper on SEPs and their availability on FRAND terms (Anubha Sinha; April 26, 2016).

Blog Entries

Global Congress 2015 - A Collection of Resources (Pervasive Technologies Team; April 1, 2016).
Compilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India (Rohini Lakshané; updated on April 15, 2016).
Joining the Dots in India's Big-Ticket Mobile Phone Patent Litigation (Rohini Lakshané; updated on April 29, 2016).
MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from Tezpur University (Karan Tripathi; April 26, 2016).
National IPR Policy Series : Sectoral Innovation Councils on Intellectual Property Rights – RTI Requests + DIPP Responses (Nehaa Chaudhari and Saahil Dama; April 30, 2016). Nisha S. Kumar assisted in compilation of the document.

Participation in Events

Fifth Annual IP Teaching Workshop (Organised by the Centre for Innovation, Intellectual Property and Competition at National Law University Delhi in association with National Academy of Law Teaching, NLU-D; Delhi; March 31 and April 1, 2016). Nehaa Chaudhari was a speaker.
First Round-table on Innovation, IP and Competition (Organized by the Centre for Innovation, Intellectual Property & Competition (CIIPC) at the National Law University, Delhi; India Habitat Centre; New Delhi; April 1-2, 2016). Nehaa Chaudhari and Anubha Sinha attended the round-table.
Brainstorming Workshop on PG Programme on Media Studies for UGC E-Pathshala Programme (Organized by Jamia Milla Islamia; New Delhi; April 5, 2016).
Sensitization Seminar on IPR for Electronics & ICT Sectors (Organized by Andhra Pradesh Technology Development & Promotion Centre (APTDC) of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in association with Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY); Vishakhapatnam; April 21, 2016).

►Wikipedia

Work Plan

CIS - A2K Work Plan: July 2016 - June 2017 (CIS-A2K Team; April 2, 2016): We have revised the work plan template taking into account the changed proposal plan sent out by WMF and in light of the feedback that we have received from FDC assessment during last proposal application. The FDC feedback is taken into account at the level of design, RoI and ensuring quality for all our activities.

Article

Eight Challenges Indian-Language Wikipedias Need to Overcome (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; April 21, 2016). A version of this post was previously published on The Wire.

Media Coverage

Odia gets more space in e-world (Anwesha Ambaly; The Telegraph; April 7, 2016).
Exercise to Correct articles in Tulu Wikipedia begins (Raviprasad Kamila; The Hindu; April 28, 2016).

Event Organized

Tulu Wikipedia Editathon to Improve Quality of Articles in Tulu Wikipedia (Shri Ramakrishna PU College; Mangaluru; April 26 - 30, 2016).

-----------------------------------
Openness
-----------------------------------

Monitoring Sustainable Development Goals in India: Availability and Openness of Data (Part II) (Kiran A.B.; April 12, 2016).

-----------------------------------
Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Cyber Security

Cyber Security of Smart Grids in India (Elonnai Hickok and Vanya Rakesh; April 25, 2016).

►Big Data

Blog Entry

RTI regarding Smart Cities Mission in India (Paul Thottan; April 21, 2016).

►Privacy

Blog Entries

FAQ on the Aadhaar Project and the Bill (Elonnai Hickok, Vanya Rakesh, and Vipul Kharbanda; April 13, 2016).
Aadhaar Act and its Non-compliance with Data Protection Law in India (Vanya Rakesh; April 14, 2016).
Can the Matters Dealt with in the Aadhaar Act be the Objects of a Money Bill? (Pooja Saxena; April 24, 2016).

Articles

Will Aadhaar Act Address India’s Dire Need For a Privacy Law? (Nehaa Chaudhari; Quint; March 31, 2016).
The Last Chance for a Welfare State Doesn’t Rest in the Aadhaar System (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; April 19, 2016).
The Aadhaar Act is Not a Money Bill (Amber Sinha; April 25, 2016).

Participation in Events

RightsCon Silicon Valley 2016 (Organized by RightsCon; March 31 and April 1, 2016). Elonnai Hickok attended the event.
Panel Discussion on UID/ Aadhar act 2016 and its impact on Social, Security (Organized by Students Christian Movement of India at SCM House; Bangalore; April 25, 2016). Sunil Abraham was a panelist.
The Centre for the Study of Law and Governance (CSLG), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), organised a roundtable discussion on Tuesday, April 26, to discuss the Aadhaar project and Act. Along with Prasanna S, Apar Gupta, and Dr. Chirashree Dasgupta, Sumandro Chattapadhyay was one of the discussants.
Aadhaar by Numbers (Organized by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; New Delhi; April 29, 2016). Sunil Abraham was a speaker.

-----------------------------------
Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

Breakthroughs Needed For Digital India (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; April 6, 2016 and Organizing India BlogSpot; April 7, 2016).

-----------------------------------
Researchers at Work
-----------------------------------
The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Article

Buying into the Aakash Dream - A Tablet’s Tale of Mass Education (Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Jahnavi Phalkey; Economic & Political Weekly; April 23, 2016).

Announcement

Call for Proposal: Big Data for Development – Initial Field Studies (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; April 29, 2016).

-----------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2016-newsletter

April 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-05-31T04:29:24Z

Newsletter for the month of April below.

We are happy to share with you the fourth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (April 2015). The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

-------------------------------
Highlights
-------------------------------

CIS received 35 engaging abstracts in response to the call for essays on 'Studying Internet in India'. The final essays will be published from June onwards. The ten selected abstracts can be read at http://cis-india.org/raw/studying-internet-in-india-selected-abstracts/ .

CIS submitted its comments to the National Informatics Centre on April 30, 2015 bringing to notice the negligible progress on the front for making Indian government websites conform to the notified standards, and gave recommendations to take the initiatives forward.
Nehaa Chaudhari has prepared a consolidated report that tracks the development of India's National IPR Policy and the requests by CIS to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion under the RTI Act and responses elicited from the Department.

Institute of Odia Studies and Research organised 2nd National Language Conference beginning on March 30, 2015 and ending on April 2, 2015 at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. This conference was organised in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Culture. Subhashish Panigrahi presented a paper in Odia language in this conference as part of a panel discussion related to Odia language computing.

Sunil Abraham's article titled "Shreya Singhal and 66A" was published in Economic and Political Weekly Vol-L No.15. Vidushi Marda helped in doing the research.

Sunil Abraham in an article in DNA titled " Multiple Aspects Need to be Addressed as the Clamour Grows for Network Neutrality " tells readers that there are four violations of Network Neutrality that are considered particularly egregious.

Jyoti Panday prepared an analysis of the Supreme Court judgement in Shreya Singhal and what it does for intermediary liability in India.
In February 2015, CIS had requested DeitY under RTI Act to provide information clarifying the procedures for blocking in India. The response elicited from DeitY has been published.

CIS sent a joint response to the TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services with scholars from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. The response was sent on March 27, 2015.

► Vacancies at CIS

CIS is seeking applications for:

Internship : CIS is providing opportunities for students enrolled in graduate programmes to undertake internship at its offices in Bangalore and Delhi. Eligible candidates are welcome to participate in our internship programme.

----------------------------------------------
Accessibility and Inclusion
----------------------------------------------
Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

# Monthly Updates

April 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; April 30, 2015).

# Language Testing Reports

Hindi Language (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 10, 2015).
Gujarati Language (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 16, 2015).
Oriya Language (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 30, 2015).

►Other

# Submission

Comments to the GIGW (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 30, 2015).

-----------------------------------------------------------
Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------------------------------
As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

# Blog Entries

Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market (Rohini Lakshané; November 10, 2014). The list of standards and specifications found in sub-USD-100 Internet-enabled mobile phones sold in India" (Annexure 2 in the post) has been updated .
Conference on Standards Settings Organizations (SSO) and FRAND, NLSIU (Rohini Lakshané; April 5, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: RTI Requests by CIS to DIPP + DIPP Responses (Nehaa Chaudhari; April 15, 2015).
Pervasive Technologies Project Working Document Series: Literature Review on IPR in Mobile app development (Anubha Sinha; April 29, 2015).

Media Coverage

CIS gave inputs for the following:

One reason startups are moving out of India (Evelyn Fok and Varun Aggarwal; The Times of India; April 10, 2015). This was also mirrored in Economic Times .
Indian businesses crave IP certainty, but better patent values are tempting them overseas (IAM Magazine; April 28, 2015).

►Wikipedia

# Participation in Event

2nd National Language Conference, Bhubaneswar (Organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research; Institute of Physics; Bhubaneswar; March 30 - April 2, 2015). This conference was organised in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Culture. Subhashish Panigrahi presented a paper in Odia language in this conference as part of a panel discussion related to Odia language computing.

# Blog Entries

Hindustani Language: We Are Wikipedia (Syed Muzamiluddin; April 10, 2015).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ଅସୁବିଧା (Subhashish Panigrahi; April 15, 2015).
Wikipedia Campus at Oxford College (Subhashish Panigrahi; April 28, 2015).

# News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Odia waits for Google Translate debut - Nine Indian languages available (Anwesha Ambaly; Telegraph; April 6, 2015).
Now you can search Google in Kannada, in your handwriting (Apurva Venkat; Bangalore Mirror; April 18, 2015).

►Openness

# Event Co-organized

NASA International Open Data Challenge 2015 (Co-organized by CIS and Team Indus; Bangalore; April 11-12, 2015).

-----------------------------------------------
Internet Governance
-----------------------------------------------
As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

►Freedom of Expression

India's Apex Court in a landmark decision struck down section 66A of the IT Act. The judgment provided great relief for advocates of freedom of speech on the Internet. The development attracted lots of media coverage to which CIS gave its inputs:

# Articles

Shreya Singhal and 66A (Sunil Abraham; Economic and Political Weekly Vol-L No.15; April 11, 2015). Vidushi Marda helped in doing the research.
Don't Do Nothing. Take a Stand on Net Neutrality. (T. Vishnu Vardhan; NDTV; April 13, 2015).
Multiple Aspects Need to be Addressed as the Clamour Grows for Network Neutrality (Sunil Abraham; DNA; April 16, 2015).
The Hazards of a Non-neutral Internet (Geetha Hariharan; April 18, 2015). A modified version of the blog entry was published as an article titled " A must for free speech " in the Week.

# Blog Entries

The Supreme Court Judgment in Shreya Singhal and What It Does for Intermediary Liability in India? (Jyoti Panday; April 11, 2015).
DeitY says 143 URLs have been Blocked in 2015; Procedure for Blocking Content Remains Opaque and in Urgent Need of Transparency Measures (Jyoti Panday; April 29, 2015).

# Event

Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age: Effective Research, Policy Formation & the Development of Regulatory Frameworks in South Asia (Organized by Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Observer Research Foundation and CIS; Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi; April 21, 2015).

# Participation in Event

Financial Express hosts #NetNeutralityDebate: 'Price discrimination can be allowed, but not for the same packet of data' (New Delhi; April 24, 2015). Pranesh Prakash participated in the discussion.

►Privacy

# Participation in Event

Privacy International Network Meeting (Organized by Privacy International, UK; April 22 - 23, 2015). Sunil Abraham attended the meeting.

►Miscellaneous

# Announcement

IIGF Recruitment : The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) conducted walk-in interviews on May 16, 2015 at NIXI Jasola office, Flat No. 6B, 6th Floor, Uppals M6 Plaza, New Delhi. NIXI sought candidates to fill the posts of Technology Analyst, Policy Analyst, Research Associate and Executive Assistants.

# Participation in Events

Global Conference on Cyberspace 2015 (Co-organized by Dutch Government, City of the Hague and One Conference; The Hague, Netherlands; April 16 - 17, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. He also participated in an expert roundtable conference .
CII Digital India Summit (Organized by Confederation of Indian Industries; Taj Mahal Hotel and Pragati Maidan, New Delhi; April 21 and 24, 2015). Pranesh Prakash attended the summit.

------------------------------------
News & Media Coverage
------------------------------------
CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

'Smack' the Trolls! (Marianne De Nazareth; The Citizen; March 31, 2015).
The block heads (Sibi Arasu; Hindu Businessline; April 3, 2015).
Smriti Irani brings back focus on voyeurism prevailing in our country (Amrita Madhukalya; DNA; April 6, 2015).
Surveillance rises, privacy retreats (Namrata Acharya; Business Standard; April 12, 2015).
People voice their support for net neutrality, say Internet a utility not a luxury (IBN Live; April 13, 2015).
Net neutrality: Trai receives over 2 lakh mails (Sandhya Soman and Jayanta Deka; April 14, 2015).
Net neutrality: Debate rages on (Surabhi Aggarwal; Business Standard; April 11, 2015)
Net neutrality debate rages (Lalatendu Mishra and Pradeesh Chandran; The Hindu; April 15, 2015).
Net neutrality: Net activism packs a punch (Sandhya Soman; The Times of India; April 19, 2015).
Net Neutrality debate in India: Here are all the arguments you need to know (Indian Express; April 23, 2015).
Freedom struggle 2.0 (Zara Khan; Hindu; April 25, 2015).
Cry, you nasty trolls (Prasun Chaudhari; The Telegraph; April 26, 2015). Net Neutrality: The argument continues (Deepak Ajwani and Debojyoti Ghosh; Forbes India Magazine; April 29, 2015).

--------------------------------
Researchers at Work
--------------------------------
The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

# Blog Entries

Studying Internet in India: Selected Abstracts - CIS received thirty five engaging abstracts in response to the call for essays on 'Studying Internet in India.' The final essays will be published from June onwards. These are the ten selected abstracts: Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights (by Deva Prasad); Indic Scripts and the Internet (by Dibyajyoti Ghosh); The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination (by Divij Joshi); Dharmasala Networked (by Laird Brown); WhatsApp Economy (by Maitrayee Deka); Citizens and their Internet (by Purbasha Auddy); The Many Lives and Sites of Internet in Bhubaneswar (by Sailen Routray); Quantity over Quality: Social Media and the New Class System in India (by Sarah McKeever); Governing Speech on the Internet: Transforming the Public Sphere through Policymaking (by Smarika Kumar).

--------------------------------
Telecom
--------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

# Submission

Response to TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-Top (OTT) Services (Pranesh Prakash; March 27, 2015). The response was sent in March but mirrored on our website recently.

---------------------------------
About CIS
---------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2015-bulletin

April 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-07-04T03:38:00Z

The newsletter for the month of April can be accessed below:

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcome you to the fourth issue of the newsletter (April) for the year 2014. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters

Highlights

We have published a compilation of the various central government schemes in a blog post as part of our National Resource Kit project.

The 27^th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (WIPO-SCCR) was held in Geneva from April 28 to May 2, 2014. Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event. CIS made its statements on Technological Measures of Protection on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives, Orphan Works, Retracted and Withdrawn Works, and Works out of Commerce on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives, and on the WIPO Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations.
CIS signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Mysore University for converting to Unicode and re-releasing their encyclopaedia under Creative Commons License. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja on behalf of the CIS-A2K team signed the MoU.
A two-day global stakeholder meeting on future of internet governance (NETmundial) was organized by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee in partnership with /1Net at Sao Paulo in Brazil on April 23 and 24, 2014. Achal Prabhala participated in the event. As part of its research to enable productive discussions of the critical internet governance issues at the meeting and elsewhere CIS published a total of 16 blog entries.
We conducted an empirical study of five separate and diverse banks (State Bank of India, Central Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank) to gain a practical perspective on the existing banking practices and policies in India, and published a Banking Policy Guide.
As part of the Making Change project Denisse Albornoz interviewed Tuhin Paul, an artist and storyteller behind Menstrupedia, an India-based social venture creating comics to shatter the myths and misunderstandings surrounding menstruation around the world. Denisse provides an analysis of ‘menstrual activism’ — a movement that despite its trajectory in feminism remains unnoticed in most accounts of traditional and digital activism.
Six research studies were commissioned by HEIRA-CSCS (over November 2013-March 2014) as part of the collaborative exercise with CIS to map the Digital Humanities within a broad rubric of exploring changes at the intersection of youth, technology and higher education in India. P.P.Sneha in her blog post presents a broad overview of some of the key learnings from these projects.

Jobs
CIS is seeking applications for the post of Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge). There are two vacancies for this post one in Delhi and one in Bangalore. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org), Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. We compiled the first draft of the kit (29 states and 6 union territories). The chapters along with the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

NVDA

Monthly Update

NVDA e-Speak Text-to-Speech Project Update (by Suman Dogra, April 28, 2014).

National Resource Kit

Blog Entry

Central Government Schemes (by Anandhi Viswanathan and CLPR, April 27, 2014).

Other

Blog Entry

Polling Pains (by Amba Salelkar, April 30, 2014).

Media Coverage

Are Elections Fair to People With Special Needs? (by Papiya Bhattacharya, New Indian Express, April 8, 2014).
Enabling Elections (Vijay Karnataka, April 9, 2014). This was published in Kannada.

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

WIPO SCCR

Participation in Events

Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights: Twenty-Seventh Session (organized by WIPO, Geneva, April 28 – May 2, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event. France, Greece, India and the European Union signed the Marrakesh Treaty. CIS delivered statements on Technological Measures of Protection on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives, Orphan Works, Retracted and Withdrawn Works, and Works out of Commerce on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives, and on the WIPO Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations. Transcripts of the discussions can be accessed here.

Blog Entries

Report on CDIP-12 (by Puneeth Nagraj, April 22, 2014).
Signing and Ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled (by Nehaa Chaudhari, April 25, 2014).
Report on the WIPO Director General’s Meeting with NGO’s (by Puneeth Nagraj, April 30, 2014).

Media Coverage

Is the WIPO Treaty for Broadcasters Moving Forward at SCCR 27? (by Manon Ress, Knowledge Ecology International, April 29, 2014).
At WIPO, Authors, Civil Society Watchful of Rights for Broadcasters (by Catherine Saez, IP Watch, May 1, 2014).

Other

Event Organized

NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2014 (CIS, Bangalore, April 12 – 13, 2014).

Blog Entries

Online Survey for Indian Mobile App Developer Startups & Enterprises (by Samantha Cassar, April 9, 2014).
App Developers Series: Services, Products, Dichotomy & IP – Part I (by Samantha Cassar, April 10, 2014).
Report on CDIP-12 (by Puneeth Nagraj, April 22, 2014).
Report on the 31st Session of the Standing Committee on Trademarks (by Puneeth Nagraj, April 29, 2014).

Wikipedia

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation:

Announcement

CIS Signs MoU with Mysore University (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, April 16, 2014): for converting to Unicode and re-releasing their encyclopaedia under Creative Commons License. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja on behalf of the CIS-A2K team signed the MoU. The signing event took place earlier on February 22, 2014.

Articles

Vachana Sanchaya: Bringing Access to 11th century Kannada Literature (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 3, 2014)
୭୯ ବର୍ଷରେ ସ୍ୱତନ୍ତ୍ର ଓଡ଼ିଶା: ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଓ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ଏହାର ବ୍ୟବ‌ହାର (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Amalekha, April 4, 2014).
ଓଡ଼ିଅା ଭାଷାର ବିକାଶ ଓ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Kadambini, April 8, 2014).
Report from India: Relicensing books under CC (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Creative Commons Blog, April 19, 2014).
14 Odia books re-released under Creative Commons license (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, April 26, 2014). The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane.

Events Organized

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop (organized by CIS-A2K, Balmatta Computer Centre, Mangalore, April 5, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (co-organized by All India Konkani Writers Organization and CIS-A2K, Kalaangann Shaktinagar, April 6, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Tulu Wikipedia Editathon (co-organized by Karnataka Theological College and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, April 19, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.

Participation in Events

Wikipedia Session for Trainee Journos (organized by Prajavani, Bangalore, April 28, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja took a session for the trainee journalists of Prajavani Kannada daily on Wikipedia.
World Book Day (organized by Karnataka Publishers’ Association, Indian Institute of World Culture, Basavanagudi, Bangalore, April 23, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was a speaker.
Relevance of Bhagabat Tungi in the evolution of Odia language from Buddha era to digital age (organized by The Intellects, Shree Jagannath Mandir and Odisha Art and Cultural Center, New Delhi, April 24, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

Media Coverage
CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

M'lore: Wikipedia Workshop held for Konkani writers (Daijiworld, April 6, 2014).
Odia Loves Wikipedia (Rising Voices, April 10, 2014). This was also published in Spanish and in Russian.
International Book Day (The Hindu, April 21, 2014).
Books are a bridge between generations (The Deccan Herald, April 23, 2014).
World Book Day Report (Vijaywani, April 23, 2014).
Seminar on Odia Language in New Delhi by the Intellects (Odisha Samachar, April 24, 2014).
Delhi meet focuses on Bhagabat Tungi revival (The Pioneer, April 26, 2014).

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

NETmundial

As part of its participation in the NETmundial event organized in Brazil by Brazilian Internet Steering Committee in partnership with /1Net at Sao Paulo on April 23 and 24, 2014 CIS produced a total of 16 outputs:

Sumandro Chattapadhyay produced these visual representations: Comparing Appearance of Fifty Most Frequent Words, Contributions by Countries of Origin, Contributions by Types of Organisation, Which Countries Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?, Which Governments Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?, Word Clouds of Contributions by Types of Organisation and Tracking *Multistakeholder* across Contributions. Achal Prabhala participated in the event and wrote these: Day 0, Day 1, and Day 2. Transcript of the NETmundial for archival purposes was made available by Pranesh Prakash. Smarika Kumar produced two research outputs: NETmundial and Suggestions for IANA Administration and Accountability of ICANN. Geetha Hariharan wrote two blog posts: Marco Civil da Internet: Brazil’s ‘Internet Constitution’ and Brazil passes Marco Civil; the US-FCC Alters its Stance on Net Neutrality. Jyoti Panday wrote one blog post: NETmundial Roadmap: Defining the Roles of Stakeholders in Multistakeholderism.

Privacy

Analyses

Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy vs. The Leaked 2014 Privacy Bill (by Elonnai Hickok, April 14, 2014).
Banking Policy Guide (by Elonnai Hickok, April 22, 2014).
The Embodiment of the Right to Privacy within Domestic Legislation (by Tanvi Mani, April 29, 2014).

Articles

Who Governs the Internet? Implications for Freedom and National Security (by Sunil Abraham, Yojana, April 4, 2014).
Privacy Law in India: A Muddled Field – I (by Bhairav Acharya, The Hoot, April 15, 2014).
Very Big Brother (by Sunil Abraham, GeneWatch, January – April 2014 Issue).

Blog Entry

South African Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (by Divij Joshi, April 16, 2014).

Participation in Events

Milton Wolf Seminar on Media and Diplomacy: The Third Man Theme Revisited: Foreign Policies of the Internet in a Time Of Surveillance and Disclosure (jointly organized by the Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, the American Austrian Foundation (AAF), and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna (DA), Vienna, March 30 – April 1, 2014). Nishant Shah participated in the event as a panelist.
GSMA Partners Meeting (organized by Privacy International, London, April 9, 2014). Elonnai Hickok participated in this meeting.
The Critical Life of Information (organized by Yale University, 100 Wall Street, April 11, 2014). Nishant Shah spoke in the panel on Big Data and Governance. Malavika Jayaram spoke in the panel on Big Data and the Arts.
Round-table on User Safety on the Internet (organized by Consumer Voice and Google, Infantry Road, Bangalore, April 24, 2014).
6th Biannual Surveillance and Society Conference (organized by Eticas Research and Consulting, University of Barcelona and CCCB, April 26 – 24, 2014). Malavika Jayaram gave a talk on “Biometrics in beta: experimenting on a nation (while normalising surveillance for 1.2 billion people)”.

Other

Articles

Between the Local and the Global: Notes Towards Thinking the Nature of Internet Policy (by Nishant Shah, cgcsblog, April 1, 2014).
Networks: What You Don’t See is What You (for)Get (by Nishant Shah, April 17, 2014).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Two Indians in Global Commission on Web Governance (April 1, 2014): Sunil Abraham was named as one of the experts. This was published in Outlook, Economic Times, and in Matters India.
The Take Down of Free Speech Online (Newslaundry, April 1, 2014): CIS research on Intermediary Liabilities is quoted.
The politics of Facebook (by Shweta Tiwari, April 1, 2014).
New privacy Bill more refined & has wider ambit, say experts (by Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, April 2, 2014).
Should Nandan Nilekani's Aadhaar project, for identity proof and welfare delivery, exist at all? (by M. Rajshekhar, April 3, 2014).
Lok sabha polls: Social media companies launch special pages for polls (by Varuni Khosla, Economic Times, April 10, 2014).
Parties give short shrift to privacy (by Pratap Vikram Singh, GovernanceNow.com, April 12, 2014).
No party's got a clear stand, Aadhaar's fate hangs in balance (by Pratap Vikram Singh, GovernanceNow.com, April 13, 2014).
'India wants core internet infrastructure' (by Indrani Bagchi, April 24, 2014).
India for inclusive internet governance (by Indrani Bagchi, April 25, 2014).
Facebook launches FB Newswire for journalists; loses part of its immunity under IT Act 2000 (by Amrita Madhukalya, DNA, April 26, 2014).

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Blog Entries

Confession in the Digital Age (by Rimi Nandy, April 14, 2014).
Animating the Archive – A Survey of Printed Digitized Materials in Bengali and their Use in Higher Education (by Saidul Haque, April 14, 2014).
‘Doing’ Digital Humanities: Reflections on a project on Online Feminism in India (by Sujatha Subramanian, April 14, 2014).
The Machinistic Paradigm Collapse (by Anirudh Sridhar, April 14, 2014).
Exploring the Digital Landscape: An Overview (by P.P.Sneha, April 14, 2014).
Digital Humanities and the Problem of Definition (by P.P.Sneha, April 25, 2014).

Digital Natives

CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:

Making Change Project

Blog Entry

Multimedia Storytellers: Panel Discussion (by Denisse Albornoz, April 16, 2014).
From Taboo to Beautiful – Menstrupedia (by Denisse Albornoz, April 30, 2014).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Event Organized

Tech Talk: Landscape of Wireless Communications & Electromagnetic Spectrum (CIS, Bangalore, April 28, 2014). A. Radha Krishna gave a talk on wireless communication technologies.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2014-bulletin

April 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-05-31T08:07:38Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the fourth issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we bring you an overview of our research programs, updates of events organised by us, events we participated in, news and media coverage, and videos of some of our recent events.

Celebrating 5 Years of CIS
We at the Centre for Internet and Society celebrate 5 years of existence with an exhibition showcasing our work and accomplishments over this time. The exhibition will be held concurrently at both our Bangalore and Delhi offices from May 20 to 24, 2013, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Google Policy Fellowship
CIS is inviting applications for the Google Policy Fellowship programme. Google is providing a USD 7,500 stipend to the India fellow who will be selected by July 1, 2013. Fellowship focus areas include Access to Knowledge, Openness in India, Freedom of Expression, Privacy, and Telecom Send in your applications for the position by June 15, 2013.

Jobs
CIS invites applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project), and Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org. CIS also invites applications for the post of Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge, Pilot Projects). To apply for this position send your resume to vishnu@cis-india.org.

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another is for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages. CIS is also working with the World Blind Union and many other organisations to develop a Treaty for the Visually Impaired helped by the WIPO:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities
Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapters on Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan:

The Himachal Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, April 30, 2013).
Goa Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, April 30, 2013).
The Jammu & Kashmir Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, April 30, 2013).
The Rajasthan Chapter (by Manojna Yeluri, April 30, 2013).

Note: All of these are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Events Organised

Girls in ICT Day (April 25, 2013, Mitra Jyothi Auditorium, HSR Layout, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a talk on Social Media and Kannada Language for Women with Disabilities. Sara Morais wrote an event report.
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (May 9, 2013, TERI, Southern Regional Centre, Domlur, Bangalore).

Announcement

CIS Gets ITU-D Sector Membership: CIS has become a sector member of ITU-D.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

The Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.

Wikipedia
Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi, and one team member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who is working from Bangalore office. Noopur Raval, Programme Officer has left the organisation. April 24, 2013 was her last working day.

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages.

Blog Entries

Indian WikiWomen celebrate Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain, April 29, 2013).
Analysis of Konkani Wikipedia: Facts & Challenges (by Nitika Tandon, April 30, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 30, 2013).

Event Organised

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia.

Events Co-organised
The following events were organised in the month of March but reports were written during the month of April. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi held meetings with wikipedians:

Kolkata Wiki Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Kolkata Wiki Community, March 14, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Cuttack, March 16, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia – Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Bhubaneswar, March 17, 2013).

The following event was organised in the month of April. We will be publishing the report soon:

Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (organised by Telugu Wikipedia Community and CIS, Hyderabad, April 9 – 11, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan was one of the trainers at the Wikipedia Academy at Centre for Good Governance on April 9, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan spoke about the Access to Knowledge work in one of the sessions of Wikimedia Meeting with Media Heads on April 10, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on A2K’s plans for the growth of Telegu Wikipedia in 2013-14 at the Telegu Wikipedia general meeting on April 11, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan also gave a talk about Access to Knowledge in the digital era at the Wiki Chaitanya Vedika on April 11, 2013.

Other Access to Knowledge Updates

WIPO

CIS Intervention on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired at SCCR/SS/GE/2/13 (Geneva, April 18 – 20, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in the session and spoke about the rights of the visually impaired.

Internet Governance

The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes. Currently, CIS is doing a project with Privacy International, London to facilitate research and events around surveillance, and freedom of speech and expression.

Information Technology

IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69A Rules: Draft and Final Version Comparison (by Jadine Lannon, April 27, 2013).
Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, 419A Rules and IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69 Rules (by Jadine Lannon, April 28, 2013).
IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69 Rules: Draft and Final Version Comparison (by Jadine Lannon, April 30, 2013).
IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69B Rules: Draft and Final Version Comparison (by Jadine Lannon, April 30, 2013).

Resources
The below rules were published recently:

Newspaper Column

Off the Record (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, April 6, 2013).

Privacy

India´s ´Big Brother´: The Central Monitoring System (CMS) (by Maria Xynou, April 8, 2013).

Events Organised
Maria Xynou gives an overview of the discussions and recommendations from the privacy round tables held in Delhi and Bangalore:

A Privacy Round Table in Delhi (organized by CIS and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, FICCI Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, April 3, 2013).
A Privacy Round Table in Bangalore (organized by CIS and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Jayamahal Palace, Jayamahal Road, Bangalore, April 20, 2013).

Announcements

2nd Expert Committee meeting on draft 'Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012': The Department of Biotechnology has constituted an Expert Committee to discuss various issues of this Bill in detail. Sunil Abraham has been nominated as one of the members of this Committee. A meeting of this Expert Committee has been scheduled for May 13, 2013 under the Chairmanship of Dr. T. S. Rao, Adviser, DBT.
Chinmayi Arun is one of the international experts supporting the Internet & Jurisdiction project, a global multi-stakeholder dialogue process.

Upcoming Events

A Privacy Round Table in Chennai (co-organised with Data Security Council of India and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Residency Towers, Sir Thyagaraja Road, T Nagar, Chennai, May 18, 10.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.).
Consilience – 2013 (National Law School of India University, Bangalore, May 26 – 27, 2013).

Other Event Hosted

Or-bits.com — A Talk by Marialaura Ghidini (CIS, Bangalore, April 19, 2013). Marialaura Ghidini gave a talk abou the creation and activities of or-bits.com, a web-based curatorial platform that she founded in 2009.

News and Media

Clarify and define terms in IT rules, panel tells govt. (by Prashant Jha, Hindu, April 1, 2013).
India takes its first serious step toward privacy regulation – but it may be misguided (Privacy Surgeon, April 9, 2013).
Regulating Social Media: Unrealistic, Impossible, Necessary? (NDTV, April 11, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in a discussion on social media aired on NDTV.
Social media may influence 160 LS seats in 2014 (by Zia Haq, Hindustan Times, April 12, 2013).
Vote: Will Social Media Impact the Election? (by R. Jai Krishna, Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2013).
Untangling the web of India's 'ungovernable' Net (Deutsche Welle, April 15, 2013).
CIS in GNI Annual Report (April 25, 2013). CIS gets mentioned in GNI Annual Report. Sunil Abraham is quoted in it.
Is free speech an Indian value? (by Satarupa Sen Bhattacharya, India Together, April 27, 2013).

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project on Internet Access. It covers the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access and will touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for formulation policies related to internet access. The blog posts and modules will be published in a new website: www.internet-institute.in.

Upcoming Event
We are hosting an “Institute on Internet and Society” with the support of Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registration and relevant details have been announced.

The following units have been published:

Internet Infrastructure (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, April 30, 2013).
Internet Service Provider – Introduction (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, April 30, 2013).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility of telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Newspaper Column

Prioritizing Communications & Energy (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard and Organizing India Blogspot, April 4, 2013).

Blog Entry

From Open Citizen Radio Networks to the Race for .RADIO gTLD (by Sharath Chandra Ram, April 30, 2013).

Event Participated

Broadband Policy Course (organised by Lirne Asia, Bangalore, April 5 – 6, 2013). Nirmita Narasimhan and Snehashish Ghosh attended the course.

About CIS

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2013-bulletin

April 2012 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-07-07T06:26:40Z

In this issue of our newsletter, we bring you updates of our latest research, event reports, videos, news and media coverage during the month of April 2012:

Internet Governance

Google Policy Fellowship

Intermediary Liability in India: Chilling Effects on Free Expression on the Internet
Rishabh Dara, Google Policy Fellow
CIS in partnership with Google India conducted the Google Policy Fellowship 2011. This was offered for the first time in Asia Pacific as well as in India. Rishabh Dara was selected as a fellow. He researched upon issues relating to freedom of expression. The results of the paper demonstrate that the ‘Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011’ notified by the Government of India on April 11, 2011 have a chilling effect on free expression.

Announcement

The Centre for Internet & Society Joins the Global Network Initiative
CIS officially joined the Global Network Initiative. CIS would bring to GNI in-depth expertise on global internet governance as well as online freedom of expression and privacy in India. GNI Executive Director Susan Morgan said “We are delighted to add our first member based in India and welcome CIS’s engagement in support of transparency and accountability in technology.”

Op-ed in the Hindu

Chilling Effects and Frozen Words (Lawrence Liang, Hindu, April 30, 2012): “What if the real danger is not that we lose our freedom of speech and expression but our sense of humour as a nation?...One hopes that our lawmakers, even if they are averse to reading the Indian Constitution, will be slightly more open to the poetic licence granted by Kautilya.”

Columns in the Indian Express

The Idea of the Book (Nishant Shah, Indian Express, April 8, 2012): “Its future lies in a trans-media format that is ever evolving... The form of the book is going to change as it has over the last 500 years. However, the idea of the book — a receptacle that contains and records collective wisdom, information, ideas, knowledge, experiences and imagination of humankind – is here to stay.”
India's Broken Internet Laws Need a Shot of Multi-stakeholderism by Pranesh Prakash. (An edited version of this article was published in the Indian Express as "Practise what you preach" on Thursday, April 26, 2012.)

Event Reports

The All India Privacy Symposium (India International Centre, New Delhi, February 4, 2012): The symposium was organised around five thematic panel discussions: privacy and transparency, privacy and e-governance initiatives, privacy and national security, privacy and banking and health privacy. Privacy India in partnership with CIS, International Development Research Centre, Privacy International, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and Society in Action Group organised this event.
The High Level Privacy Conclave (Paharpur Business Centre, Nehru Place Greens, New Delhi, February 3, 2012): The conclave was organised around two panels: national Security and privacy and internet and privacy. Malavika Jayaram moderated the first panel discussion on national Security and privacy. Sunil Abraham moderated the second panel discussion on internet and privacy. Privacy India in partnership with CIS, International Development Research Centre, Privacy International, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and Society in Action Group organised this event.

Events Organised

Resisting Internet Censorship: Strategies for Furthering Freedom of Expression in India (Bangalore International Centre, TERI Complex, Domlur, April 21, 2012): CIS co-organised this event with the Foundation for Media Professionals. Members of Parliament, P. Rajeeve and Rajeev Chandrashekar and Member of Legislative Council, Karnataka, V.R. Sudarshan participated in the event.
Konkan Corridor Project — A Lecture by Vasant Gangavane (Ashoka Innovators for the Public, Bangalore, April 16, 2012): Well known social worker Vasant Gangavane gave a lecture.
Braitenberg Cybernetic Vehicles: Workshop, Film Screening & Discussion (Metaculture Media Lab, CIS, Bangalore, April 14, 2012): There was a short presentation about Braitenberg vehicles.

Events Participated

GIGA International Conference Series - 1 (NALSAR University of Law, Justice City Campus, Shameerpet, Hyderabad, April 5 and 6, 2012): The Institute of Global Internet Governance and Advocacy and Department of Electronics and Information Technology organised the conference. Sunil Abraham gave a lecture on Digital Natives vs. Digital Naivety in the session on Internet Governance & Society.
Expert-Group on Privacy Issues (New Delhi, April 13 and 14, 2012): The Planning Commission constituted this expert group under the chairmanship of Justice AP Shah. Sunil Abraham participated in the first meeting of the sub-group on privacy issues.

Video

Privacy International's Trip to Asia (by Emma Draper in Privacy International blog): In February 2012, the Privacy International team travelled to India, Bangladesh and Hong Kong to meet with local partners in the region and speak at four conferences they had organized. The team got a chance to interview its partners in India and Bangladesh on the privacy issues facing them at the moment. This is captured in a video about contemporary privacy issues in India and Bangladesh.

Media Coverage

It’s mainstream vs social (Guest column by Mahima Kaul, Sunday Guardian, April 30, 2012): “If the video is judged to be 'obscene', then under s.67 of the Information Technology Act, 'causing [obscenity] to be transmitted', is also a crime,”...Sunil Abraham quoted in the Sunday Guardian.
From Cyber India to Censor India: Groups challenge didactic govt (by Satarupa Paul, Sunday Guardian, April 29, 2012): “Instead of a court deciding what makes content illegal, private intermediaries get to decide. And there is no penalty for anyone abusing the take-down notice system,”...Sunil Abraham quoted in the Sunday Guardian.
Social Media 1, Indian Government 0 (by Heather Timmons, New York Times, April 26, 2012): “Because India does not have a bilateral cyber-crime agreement with the United States (as the European Union does), getting American companies like Facebook and Google to take down or investigate the source of content that offends Indian government officials can be a slow and cumbersome process,”...Sunil Abraham quoted in the New York Times.
Private sector censors (by Salil Tripathi, LiveMint, April 25, 2012): “Companies which have no interest in free speech are now taking these decisions. They have the power to do so and they are using it without any sense of responsibility,”...Sunil Abraham quoted in LiveMint.
Views | Why the Left may for once be right (by Pramit Bhattacharya, LiveMint, April 23, 2012): “It has become much easier in India to ban an e-book than a book,”...Pranesh Prakash quoted in LiveMint.
Campaign against curbs on websites gathers steam (by Arpan Daniel Varghese, IBN Live, April 23, 2012): “If a company wants to target your organization’s social media network, they can keep sending fraudulent emails to you and you will have to keep deleting it unless you are ready to face litigation or government action...Sunil Abraham quoted in IBN Live.
Expect anti-net censorship echo in house (by Arpan Daniel Varghese, IBN Live, April 25, 2012): “why should freedom of speech and expression be any different on the Internet?”...Sunil Abraham quoted in IBN Live.
Mobilising support for freedom on the Web (by Deepa Kurup Hindu, April 22, 2012): Rishabh Dara’s research published as part of the Google Policy Fellowship is quoted.
MPs to be taught ‘draconian’ IT Act Rules as India.net support galvanises for annul motion (by Prachi Shrivastava, Legally India, April 23, 2012): Prachi has blogged about the Resisting Internet Censorship co-organised by CIS and the Foundation for Media Professionals in Bangalore.
India arrests professor over political cartoon (by Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post, April 13, 2012): “The state’s new-found aversion to non-believers has gone a bit too far,”...Pranesh Prakash quoted in Washington Post.
A beauty’s blog creates furore (by Lakshmi Krupa, Deccan Chronicle, April 10, 2012).

Digital Natives

Digital Natives with a Cause? is a research inquiry that looks at the changing landscape of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:

Public Lecture

5 Challenges for the Future of Learning: Digital Natives and How We Shall Teach Them (Wyndham Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco, California, March 1, 2012): Nishant Shah gave a ignite talk. The video is now online.

Book Review...a few excerpts

Immigrants not Natives: “‘To Be’, ‘To Think’, ‘To Act’ and ‘To Connect’ provides many fascinating and thought-provoking insights into the possibilities for reflection, action and interaction,”... Sally Wyatt, eHumanities Group, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences/Maastricht University.

Accessibility

India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:

Event Report

ITU Tutorial on Audiovisual Media Accessibility (India International Centre, New Delhi, March 14 – 15, 2012): CIS in cooperation with the ITU-APT Foundation of India organised a two-day tutorial on Audio-Visual Media Accessibility. Sunil Abraham was the Master of Ceremony on Day 1. Ravi Shanker, Administrator, Universal Service Obligation Fund, Dr. Govind, CEO, National Internet Exchange of India, Swaran Lata, Director and Head of Department, TDIL Programme, DIT, R.N. Jha, Deputy Director General (International Relations), Department of Telecommunications and Archana Gulati, Financial Advisor, National Disaster Management Authority participated in this event.

New Fellow at CIS

Rahul Cherian joins CIS: Disability policy activist, lawyer and co-founder of Inclusive Planet, Rahul Cherian has joined CIS as a Fellow. Rahul will be working on disability policy reform and advocacy.

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:

New Event

2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest (FGV Law School, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, December 15 – 17, 2012): We are pleased to announce the Second Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. The theme for this year’s Congress will be “Setting the positive agenda in motion,” and will have a special focus on developments and opportunities in the so-called “BRICS” group of emerging economies. CIS is one of the six members of the Global Congress Planning Committee..

News & Media Coverage

Hacking, Modding & Making (by Brendan Shanahan): “If something has been made technologically possible, we cannot make it illegal and hope that everyone will now pretend that this is no longer technologically possible...We can't have the government checking everyone's iPod and laptop. The better move is to change the model,”...Sunil Abraham quoted in GQ.

Openness

The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:

Event Reports and Video

Arduino Workshop at CIS (CIS, Bangalore, March 3, 2012). Video is now online.
Hejje — Together with Kannada & Technology (Bangalore, January 22, 2012): The event marked the first step to bring everyone working in Kannada in the IT field to brainstorm the ideas for future steps, and create a space for technological collaboration in Kannada. CIS co-organised the event with Sanchaya.net, Vishwakannada.com and Chanda Pustaka.

Events Organised

Bangalore Meet-up for the Open Government Partnership Brasilia (CIS, Bangalore, April 17, 2012): Ananya Panda and Pranesh Prakash participated in the first annual meeting of Open Government Partnership remotely.
Design!PubliC – Event in Delhi (New Delhi, April 19 and 20, 2012): The event was co-organised by Centre for Knowledge Societies in partnership with IBM, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, HeadStart, India@75, LiveMint and CIS.
International Space Apps Challenge (CIS, Bangalore, April 21 and 22, 2012): An international codeathon-style event took place in seven continents, CIS organised the event in Bangalore.

Telecom

While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:

Column in Business Standard

China 3: Build Comprehensive Ecosystems (Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, April 5, 2012): “Failures in electricity, transport and broadband have common strands. China's approach offers a possible alternative.”

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. Over the last four years our policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with International Telecommunications Union, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos. With foreign governments we worked on National Enterprise Architecture and Government Interoperability Framework for Govt. of Iraq; Open Standards Policy for Govt. of Moldova; Free and Open Software Centre of Excellence project plan for Saudi Arabia; eGovernance Strategy Document for Govt. of Tajikistan. With the Government of India we have done policy research for Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, Interoperability Framework in eGovernance, Privacy Bill, NIA Bill, National Policy on Electronics and IT Act.

CIS is an accredited NGO at WIPO and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at www.cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2012-bulletin

April 2011 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2011-06-15T10:55:26Z

newsletter issue of April 2011

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/publications-automated/april-2011.pdf

April 2011 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-07-30T10:45:01Z

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this issue we are pleased to present you the latest updates about our research, upcoming events, and news and media coverage:

Researchers@Work

RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India.

Workshops organised in Bangalore

Shadow Search Project (SSP) [CIS, April 18, 2011]
Facebook Resistance [CIS, April 2, 2011]

Digital Natives with a Cause?

Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscape of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who want to critically engage with the dominant discourse on youth, technology and social change, in order to look at the alternative practices and ideas in the Global South. It also aims at building new ecologies that amplify and augment the interventions and actions of the digitally young as they shape our futures.

Columns on Digital Natives

A fortnightly column on ‘Digital Natives’ authored by Nishant Shah is featured in the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, from 19 September 2010 onwards. The following were published in the month of April:

Who the Hack? [Indian Express, April 24, 2011]
One for the avatar [Indian Express, April 3, 2011]

Digital Natives Newsletter

Links in the Chain is a bi-monthly publication which highlights the projects, ideas and news of the Digital Natives with a Cause? The first issue of volume IV is here:

links in the chain volume 4 Best Practices

New Blog Entry by Samuel Tettner

Samuel Tettner is a Digital Natives Coordinator in CIS. He has written the following blog entry:

Cyber Fears: What scares Digital Natives and those around them

Accessibility

Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.

Workshop organised in Hyderabad

Web Sites Accessibility Evaluation Methodologies: Conference Report

Openness

CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software. Its latest endeavour has resulted into these:

Submission

Comments on Draft National Policy on ICT in School Education

New Blog Entry

Towards Open and Equitable Access to Research and Knowledge for Development [PLoS, March 29, 2011]

Internet Governance

Although there may not be one centralized authority that rules the Internet, the Internet does not just run by its own volition: for it to operate in a stable and reliable manner, there needs to be in place infrastructure, a functional domain name system, ways to curtail cyber crime across borders, etc. The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), paragraph 34 defined Internet governance as “the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.” Its latest endeavour has resulted into these:

CIS is doing a project, ‘Privacy in Asia’. It is funded by Privacy International (PI), UK and the International Development Research Centre, Canada and is being administered in collaboration with the Society and Action Group, Gurgaon. The two-year project commenced on 24 March 2010 and will be completed as agreed to by the stakeholders. It was set up with the objective of raising awareness, sparking civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around challenges and violations of privacy in India. In furtherance of these goals it aims to draft and promote over-arching privacy legislation in India by drawing upon legal and academic resources and consultations with the public.

Featured Research

Interview

An Interview with Activist Shubha Chacko: Privacy and Sex workers

Workshops organized in Ahmedabad and Bangalore

'Privacy Matters', Ahmedabad: Conference Report [Ahmedabad Management Association, Ahmedabad, March 26, 2011]
Privacy, By Design [CIS, April 16, 2011]

New Blog Entries

Telecom

The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers. CIS campaigns to facilitate this:

Column

Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.

Learning from Fukushima [published in the Business Standard on April 7, 2011]

News & Media Coverage

The Gary Chapman International School on Digital Transformation[International School on Digital Transformation, July 17-22, 2011]
Iraqi delegation in Bangalore to study e-governance projects [Economic Times, April 20, 2011]
Dark waders [Time Out Bengaluru, Vol. 3, Issue 20, April 15 - 28, 2011]
Beyond Clicktivism [Outlook, April 18, 2011]
Gone in a flash [Times of India, April 16, 2011]
How Web 2.0 responded to Hazare [Hindu, April 11, 2011]
EU Commissioner Hedegaard to deliver keynote address at consumer world congress
Net cracker [Time Out Bengaluru Vol. 3 Issue 19, April 1 - 14, 2011]
On the Path to Global Open Access: A Few More Miles to Go [PLoS, March 2011, Volume 8, Issue 3]

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Follow CIS on identi.ca
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at www.cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2011-bulletin

April 2010 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-08-13T04:51:19Z

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! We bring you updates of our research, events and news for the month of April 2010.

News Updates

Worries voiced over ID Project
The Government of India's Unique Identification (UID) Project came under flak at a workshop organised jointly by the Citizen Action Forum (CAF), the People's Union of Civil Liberties - Karnataka, the Alternative Law Forum and the Centre for Internet and Society - An article in The Hindu - 17th April.
http://cis-india.org/news/worries-voiced-over-id-project

UID: A debate on the Fundamental Rights
UID: A debate on the Fundamental Rights - was jointly organized by the Citizen Action Forum, People's Union for Civil Liberties - Karnataka, Alternative Law Forum and the Centre for Internet and Society on April 16th at IAT, Queens Road, Bangalore - An article in the Prajavani news paper - April 17th.
http://cis-india.org/news/uid-a-debate-on-fundamental-rights

UID is an invasion of Privacy: Experts
The Nandan Nilekani headed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) came in for much criricism at the first of a series of debates on the issue organised in the city on Friday - Deccan Chronicle, April 17th.
http://cis-india.org/news/uid-is-an-invasion-of-privacy-experts

Experts debate on UID and rights
Bangalore, Apr 16, DHNS: A debate on ‘UID and Fundamental Rights’ organised by several city-based organisations, discussed the social, ethical issues, economic and legal issues that accompanies the UID.
http://cis-india.org/news/experts-debate-on-uid-and-rights

Amendment to Copyright Act opposed
A report on the press conference held on 15th April, at the Press Club, Bangalore: The Hindu
http://cis-india.org/news/amendment-to-copyright-act-opposed

They fight for the visually challenged
Times News Network - A report on the press conference held at the Press Club, Bangalore on 15th April, 2010.
http://cis-india.org/news/they-fight-for-the-visually-challenged

Digital Natives Research Project Coordinator
The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, in collaboration with Hivos Netherlands, is looking for a Research Project Coordinator to help develop a knowledge network and coordinate international workshops for the project "Digital Natives with a Cause?"
http://cis-india.org/news/research-coordinator

Expel or not? That is the question
The decision of an international school to expel 14 students for their alleged ‘promiscuous’ behaviour has led to much debate and discussion.
http://cis-india.org/news/expel-or-not

Nokia eyes GeNext to tap mobile email mkt
Finnish handset giant banks on youth to be in the technology race
http://cis-india.org/news/nokia-eyes-genNext

Research

Critical Point of View: Videos
The Second event for the Critical Point of View reader on Wikipedia was held in Amsterdam, by the Institute of Network Cultures and the Centre for Internet and Society. A wide range of scholars, academics, researchers, practitioners, artists and users came together to discuss questions on design, analytics, access, education, theory, art, history and processes of knowledge production. The videos for the full event are now available for free viewing and dissemination.

Colour Me Political
What are the tools that Digital Natives use to mobilise groups towards a particular cause? How do they engage with crises in their immediate environments? Are they using their popular social networking sites and web 2.0 applications for merely entertainment? Or are these tools actually helping them to re-articulate the realm of the political? Nishant Shah looks at the recent Facebook Colour Meme to see how new forms of political participation and engagement are being initiated by young people across the world.
http://cis-india.org/research/dn/dn2

Meet the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine
Digital Natives live their lives differently. But sometimes, they also die their lives differently! What happens when we die online? Can the digital avatar die? What is digital life? The Web 2.0 Suicide machine that has now popularly been called the 'anti-social-networking' application brings some of these questions to the fore. As a part of the Hivos-CIS "Digital Natives with a Cause?" research programme, Nishant Shah writes about how Life on the Screen is much more than just a series of games.
http://cis-india.org/research/dn/dn1

Digital Natives with a Cause?
Digital Natives With A Cause? - a product of the Hivos-CIS collaboration charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology with a specific attention for developing countries to create a framework that consolidates existing paradigms and informs further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.
http://cis-india.org/research/dn/dnrep

Advocacy

Accessibility

e-Accessibility: A Wiki Project
Envisaged and funded by the National Internet Exchange of India, and executed by the Centre for Internet and Society, a Wiki site pertaining to issues of disability and e-accessibility has recently been launched.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-a-wiki-project

Copyright Law as a tool for Inclusion
Can Copyright Law be used as a tool for Inclusion? Rahul Cherian examines this in his blog on copyright.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/copyright-law-as-tool-for-inclusion

Web Accessibility as a Government Mandate?
Is Web accessibility just a Government Mandate? Should private sites be ignored? Wesolowski examines this in light of the steps taken by ictQATAR to make its website accessible to W3C standards, and hopes that Qatar and eventually all other Arab nations will follow suit and make Web accessibility much more of a mandate.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/web-accessibility-government-mandate

Intellectual Property

When Copyright Goes Bad
A part of the Access to Knowledge Project, this short film by Consumers International is available on DVD and online at A2Knetwork.org/film.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/when-copyright-goes-bad

Openness

Research Project on Open Video in India
Open Video Alliance and the Centre for Internet and Society are calling for researchers for a project on open video in India, its potentials, limitations, and recommendations on policy interventions.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/openness/blog/open-video-research

Does the Social Web need a Googopoly?
While the utility of the new social tool Buzz is still under question, the bold move into social space taken last week by the Google Buzz team has Gmail users questioning privacy implications of the new feature. In this post, I posit that Buzz highlights two privacy challenges of the social web. First, the application has sidestepped the consensual and contextual qualities desirable of social spaces. Secondly, Google’s move highlights the increasingly competitive and convergent nature of the social media landscape.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/openness/blog/does-the-social-web-need-a-googopoly

The (in)Visible Subject: Power, Privacy and Social Networking
In this entry, I will argue that the interplay between privacy and power on social network sites works ultimately to subject individuals to the gaze of others, or to alternatively render them invisible. Individual choices concerning privacy preferences must, therefore, be informed by the intrinsic relationship which exists between publicness/privateness and subjectivity/obscurity.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/openness/blog/the-in-visible-subject-power-privacy-and-social-networking

Internet Governance

Does the Safe-Harbor Program Adequately Address Third Parties Online?
While many citizens outside of the US and EU benefit from the data privacy provisions the Safe Harbor Program, it remains unclear how successfully the program can govern privacy practices when third-parties continue to gain more rights over personal data. Using Facebook as a site of analysis, I will attempt to shed light on the deficiencies of the framework for addressing the complexity of data flows in the online ecosystem.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/does-the-safe-harbor-program-adequately-address-third-parties-online

Sense and censorship
Sunil Abraham examines Google's crusade against censorship in China in wake of the attacks on its servers in this article published in the Indian Express.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/sense-and-censorship

Report on the Fourth Internet Governance Forum for Commonwealth IGF
This report by Pranesh Prakash reflects on the question of how useful is the IGF in the light of meetings on the themes of intellectual property, freedom of speech and privacy.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/report-on-fourth-IGF

Telecom

The Right Ring Tone
Focus on improving service quality with a strong partner, and not on one-shot stake sales, says Shyam Ponappa in his article published in the Business Standard on April 1, 2010.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/telecom/blog/ring-tone

Other Advocacy

Maps for Making Change Wiki Now Open to the Public
Since December 2009, CIS has been coordinating and nurturing the Maps for Making Change project, organised in collaboration with Tactical Tech. During the past four months, participants have been on a challenging yet fertile and inspiring journey that is now slowly coming to an end. Would you like to know more about what has happened in the time that has passed? The Maps for Making Change wiki is a good place to start.
http://cis-india.org/advocacy/others/maps-for-making-change-wiki-now-open-to-the-public

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2010-bulletin

Approaching Open Research via Open Data - Presentation at TERI, December 22, 2015

sumandro — 2016-01-12T14:37:38Z

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Delhi, organised a seminar on 'Open Access in Research Area: A Strategic Approach' on December 22, 2015. We supported the seminar as a knowledge partner. Sumandro Chattapadhyay was invited to deliver a special address. Here are the notes and slides from the presentation.

The brief presentation foregrounded open data as a crucial part of open research, and also as an instrument of opening up research for public consumption, discussion, and scrutiny.

The presentation started with reference to the Open Access Dialogues organised by The African Commons Project and the Centre for Internet and Society during November 2012 to March 2013 that explored the global open access agenda from a developing world perspective.

I noted that one of the key findings from the Indian participants of the online consultations organised as part of the Open Access Dialogues was the need for a broader vision of open access. Open research data is a key component of this broader vision of open access and open research.

There was a brief discussion of how to start doing and thinking about open data as an approach to open research. I highlighted the need to get started on 1) getting government to open up data relevant to research, 2) opening up academic research data, and 3) sectoral conversations on data standards (technical and semantic); as well as the need to think about 1) open data as bridge across disciplinary communities, 2) quantification of life and the widening sphere of research data, and 3) academic research and public life.

In next slides, I quickly mentioned the international processes going on in the open data landscape - the conversation on open data and Sustainable Development Data, the possibility of using big (social and telecom) data for purposes of development monitoring, and the International Open Data Charter as a set of global principles for open data.

More about the seminar: http://cis-india.org/openness/teri-seminar-on-open-access-in-research.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/approaching-open-research-via-open-data-2015

APC starts research into spectrum regulation in Brazil, India, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T11:56:04Z

Communication infrastructure is the foundation of the knowledge-based economy and while there has been a boom in the construction of undersea cables bringing potentially terabits of capacity to the African continent, the ability to deliver broadband to consumers is hampered by inefficient telecommunications markets and policies. Wireless connectivity offers tremendous potential to deliver affordable broadband to developing countries but inefficient spectrum policy and regulation means the opportunity to seize the advantages brought about by improvements in wireless broadband technologies are extremely limited.

Spectrum policy in a nutshell

Television, mobile phones, wireless networking and amateur radio all transmit their data using radio waves. Different parts of the radio spectrum are used for different radio transmission technologies and applications and ranges of allocated frequencies are often referred to by their provisioned use (for example, wireless spectrum or television spectrum). Spectrum policy around the world focuses on three factors – allocation, assignment and enforcement.

Allocation sets aside spectrum for specific uses such as cell phones at 1.9 GHz, and broadcast TV at 500 Mhz.
Assignment is most widely carried out through spectrum auctions. In a spectrum auction, those who make the highest bid secure use of the spectrum.
Enforcement (within nations) is usually split between two institutions – a governmental/ministerial one that overseas spectrum relating to and reserved for national security and a regulatory one for the enforcement of spectrum that fulfils commercial and/or socio-economic objectives.

We are seeing accelerated change in the capacity of wireless technologies to deliver affordable access. According to wireless pioneer Martin Cooper, “every 30 months the amount of information that can be transmitted over a given amount of radio spectrum doubles”. However, without forward-looking policy and regulation that can embrace the rapid change in wireless technologies, African, Asian and Latin American countries will miss the opportunity to allow affordable, pervasive wireless broadband infrastructure to develop in their countries.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest barriers to utilising this opportunity is simply a lack of awareness of global trends and of what policy and regulatory processes exist to manage spectrum.

APC’s new research: Understanding spectrum regulation
The overall goal of APC’s new research project is to provide an understanding of spectrum regulation in several countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, not just in terms of making information available, or how spectrum is assigned, but who deals with spectrum and what policy or regulatory framework is currently in use.

The procedures governing spectrum allocation and assignment are often opaque, highly technical and governed by an inner circle of technical experts in the regulators, operators and equipment suppliers in each country. An important dimension of the research will lie in decoding some of this complexity and making the information as transparent and accessible as possible. The research will also seek to examine arguments that proclaim the scarcity of spectrum1.

The research is timely as the rapid growth of wireless and mobile in Asia, Africa and Latin America is raising fresh questions about the use of spectrum and the policies that govern it. Civil society-based alliances such as the Open Spectrum Alliance in South Africa2 and the national broadband campaigns in South Africa3, Ghana and Nigeria are raising spectrum issues. Digital migration and the opportunity it creates to make use of white spaces in frequencies currently allocated for broadcasting for broadband wireless networks has renewed interest by governments in auctioning off blocks of spectrum as a revenue-generating mechanism. The research will feed into this dynamic context of debate and dialogue on spectrum regulation and wireless broadband.

Indians look beyond the present

In India the research will go beyond the current status of spectrum regulation and and also will look at the current and potential use of pooled spectrum and infrastructure sharing by mobile operators. Pooled spectrum is an alternative to the open spectrum approach with licensed network/facilities providers and regulated rates/tariffs (because of the rationale of network economies). The Indian study will also explore two additional areas which could also be of value in other parts of the world:

Whether spectrum rights can remain publicly owned/operated by the government, while usage rights are made available for a fee; and, the costs and benefits of larger bands of open spectrum versus the experience-curve benefits of legacy systems, with indicative time frames.

The APC open spectrum for development initiative will be implemented in partnership with the Open Society Institute (OSI), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Shuttleworth Foundation in South Africa and the Centre for Internet and Society in India. OSI is supporting the research in Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria and IDRC the research in Brazil and India.

Read more about the APC’s Open spectrum project

Click here for the original article in APC

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/research-into-spectrum-regulation

Anti-Spam Laws in Different Jurisdictions: A Comparative Analysis

Rakshanda Deka — 2015-07-02T16:21:01Z

This paper is divided into three sections. The first section puts forth a comparative table of the spam laws of five different countries - the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom - based on eight distinct parameters- jurisdiction of the legislation, definition of ‘spam’, understanding of consent, labelling requirements, types of senders covered, entities empowered to sue, exceptions made and penalties prescribed. The second section is a brief background of the problem of spam and it attempts to establish the context in which the paper is written. The third section is a critical analysis of the laws covered in the first section. In an effort to spot the various loopholes in these laws and suggest effective alternatives, this section points out the distinctions between the various legislations and discusses briefly their respective advantages and disadvantages.

Note:- This analysis is a part of a larger attempt at formulating a model anti-spam law for India by analyzing the existing spam laws across the world.

	CAN-SPAM Act, 2003	Spam Act, 2003 (Australia)	Spam Control Act, 2007 (Singapore)	Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014	The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations, 2003 (United Kingdom)
Jurisdiction	National Jurisdiction. The defendant must be either an inhabitant of the United States or have a physical place of business in the US.[1]	National Jurisdiction. Must have an "Australian link" i.e. (a) the message originates in Australia; or (b) the individual or organisation who sent the message, or authorised the sending of the message, is: (i) an individual who is physically present in Australia when the message is sent; or (ii) an organisation whose central management and control is in Australia when the message is sent; or (c) the computer, server or device that is used to access the message is located in Australia; or (d) the relevant electronic account-holder is: (i) an individual who is physically present in Australia when the message is Spam Act, 2003, § 7 Spam Control Act, 2007, § 7(2) Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, §accessed; or (ii) an organisation that carries on business or activities in Australia when the message is accessed; or (e) if the message cannot be delivered because the relevant electronic address does not exist-assuming that the electronic address existed, it is reasonably likely that the message would have been accessed using a computer, server or device located in Australia.[2]	National Jurisdiction. Must have a "Singapore link" An electronic message has a Singapore link in the following circumstances: (a) the message originates in Singapore; (b) the sender of the message is - (i) an individual who is physically present in Singapore when the message is sent; or (ii) an entity whose central management and control is in Singapore when the message is sent; © the computer, mobile telephone, server or device that is used to access the message is located in Singapore; the recipient of the message is- (i) an individual who is physically present in Singapore when the message is accessed; or (ii)an entity that carries on business or activities in Singapore when the message is accessed; or (e) if the message cannot be delivered because the relevant electronic address has ceased to exist (assuming that the electronic address existed), it is reasonably likely that the message would have been accessed using a computer, mobile telephone, server or device located in Singapore.[3]	Extends to cases where the mail originates in a foreign state but is accessed in Canada Section 6 of the CASL prohibits the sending of unsolicited CEMs.[4] As per Section 12 of the CASL, A person contravenes section 6 only if a computer system located in Canada is used to send or access the electronic message. CASL applies to CEMs sent from, or accessed in, Canada.[5] So, if a CEM is sent to Canadians from another jurisdiction, CASL will apply. Notably, there is an exception where the person sending the message "reasonably believes" that the message will be accessed in one of a list of prescribed jurisdictions with anti-spam laws thought to be 'substantially similar' to CASL and the message complies with the laws of that jurisdiction.	European Union These regulations can be enforced against a person or a company anywhere in the European Union who violates the regulations.
Definition Of Spam	"unsolicited, commercial, electronic mail"[6], where a commercial electronic mail is "any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service"[7]	"unsolicited commercial electronic messages" where electronic message means a message sent "using an internet carriage service or any other listed carriage service; and to an electronic address in connection with: an e-mail account; or an instant messaging account; or a telephone account; or a similar accounts."[8]	"unsolicited commercial electronic message sent in bulk", where a CEM is unsolicited if the recipient did not- i) request to receive the message; or ii)consent to the receipt of the message;[9] and CEMs shall be deemed to be sent in bulk if a person sends, causes to be sent or authorizes the sending of- a) more than 100 messages containing the same subject matter during a 24-hour period; b) more than 1,000 messages containing the same subject matter during a 30-day period; c) more than 10,000 messages containing the same subject matter during a one-year period.	"unsolicited, commercial, electronic message"[10] where, an "electronic message" means a message sent by any means of telecommunication, including a text, sound, voice or image message.[11]	These rules apply to all unsolicited direct marketing communications by automatic call machines[12], fax[13], calls[14] or e-mail[15]. Where, "direct marketing" is defined as "the communication (by whatever means) of any advertising or marketing material which is directed to particular individuals"[16] The UK used its discretion to include voice-to-voice telephone calls as well.
Consent Requirement	Opt-out	Opt-in	Opt-out	Opt-in	Opt-in
Consent Requirement	CEMs are unlawful unless the message provides- (i)clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation; (ii)clear and conspicuous notice of the opportunity under paragraph (3) to decline to receive further commercial electronic mail messages from the sender; and (iii) a valid physical postal address of the sender.[17]	Section 16 prohibits the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages. However, where a recipient has consented to the sending of the message, the said prohibition does not apply.[18] Consent means: (a) express consent; or (b) consent that can reasonably be inferred from: (i) the conduct; and (ii) the business and other relationships; of the individual or organisation concerned.[19]	CEMs are unlawful unless the message contains- 1 a) an electronic mail address, an Internet location address, a telephone number, a facsimile number or a postal address that the recipient may use to submit an unsubscribe request; and b) a statement the above information may be utilized to send an unsubscribe request. 2. Where the unsolicited CEM is received by text or multimedia message sent to a mobile telephone number, the CEM must include a mobile telephone number to which the recipient may send an unsubscribe request. [20]	Under the CASL, it is prohibited to send or cause or permit to be sent to an electronic address a commercial electronic message unless, (a) the person to whom the message is sent has consented to receiving it, whether the consent is express or implied; and (b) The message must- (i) set out prescribed information that identifies the person who sent the message and the person - if different - on whose behalf it is sent; (ii) set out information enabling the person to whom the message is sent to readily contact one of the persons referred to in paragraph (i); and (iii) set out an unsubscribe mechanism in accordance with subsection 11(1) of CASL.[21]	Under Section 19 , A person shall neither transmit, nor instigate the transmission of, communications comprising recorded matter for direct marketing purposes by means of an automated calling system except in the circumstances where the called line is that of a subscriber who has previously notified the caller that for the time being he consents to such communications being sent by, or at the instigation of, the caller on that line. Under Section 20 , A person shall neither transmit, nor instigate the transmission of, unsolicited communications for direct marketing purposes by means of a facsimile machine where the called line is that of an individual or a company except in the circumstances where the individual subscriber has previously notified the caller that he consents for the time being to such communications being sent by, or at the instigation of, the caller. Under Section 21, A person shall neither use, nor instigate the use of, a public electronic communications service for the purposes of making unsolicited calls for direct marketing purposes where the called line is that of a subscriber who has previously notified the caller that such calls should not for the time being be made on that line. Under Section 22 , a person shall neither transmit, nor instigate the transmission of, unsolicited communications for the purposes of direct marketing by means of electronic mail unless the recipient of the electronic mail has previously notified the sender that he consents for the time being to such communications being sent by, or at the instigation of, the sender.
Labelling Requirements	Warning Labels mandatory on e-mails containing pornographic content No person may send to a protected computer, any commercial electronic mail message that includes sexually oriented material and- (a) fail to include in subject heading for the electronic mail message the marks or notices prescribed by the law; or (B) fail to provide that the matter in the message that is initially viewable to the recipient, when the message is opened by any recipient and absent any further actions by the recipient, includes only- (i) material which the recipient has consented to; (ii) the identifier information required to be included in pursuance Section 5(5); and (iii) Instructions on how to access, or a mechanism to access, the sexually oriented material.[22]	Not Applicable.	True e-mail title and clear identification of advertisements with "ADV" label Every unsolicited CEM must contain- a) where there is a subject field, a title which is not false or misleading as to the content of the message; b) the letters "<ADV>" with a space before the title in the subject field or if there is no subject field, in the words first appearing in the message to clearly identify that the message is an advertisement; c) header information that is not false or misleading; and d) an accurate and functional e-mail address or telephone number by which the sender can be readily contacted.[23]	Not Applicable.	Not Applicable.
Other Banned/Restricted Activities	Illegal Access- Prohibition Against Predatory and Abusive Commercial E-Mail- "Whoever, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly- (1) accesses a protected computer without authorization, and intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple CEMs from or through such computer, (2) uses a protected computer to relay or retransmit multiple CEMs, with the intent to deceive or mislead recipients, or any Internet access service, as to the origin of such messages, (3) materially falsifies header information in multiple commercial electronic mail messages and intentionally initiates the transmission of such messages, (4) registers, using information that materially falsifies the identity of the actual registrant, for five or more electronic mail accounts or online user accounts or two or more domain names, and intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple commercial electronic mail messages from any combination of such accounts or domain names, or (5) falsely represents oneself to be the registrant or the legitimate successor in interest to the registrant of 5 or more Internet Protocol addresses, and intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple commercial electronic mail messages from such addresses, or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided for in the Act.[24]	Supply of address harvesting software and harvested‑address lists "A person must not supply or offer to supply: (a) address‑harvesting software; or (b) a right to use address‑harvesting software; or (c) a harvested address list; or (d) a right to use a harvested‑address list; to another person if: (e) the supplier is: (i) an individual who is physically present in Australia at the time of the supply or offer; or (ii) a body corporate or partnership that carries on business or activities in Australia at the time of the supply or offer; or (f) the customer is: (i) an individual who is physically present in Australia at the time of the supply or offer; or (ii) a body corporate or partnership that carries on business or activities in Australia at the time of the supply or offer."	Dictionary Attacks and Address harvesting software "No person shall send, cause to be sent, or authorize the sending of, an electronic message to electronic addresses generated or obtained through the use of- a) a dictionary attack; b) address harvesting software.[25] Where, "dictionary attack" means the method which by which the electronic address of a recipient is obtained using an automated means that generates possible electronic addresses by combining names, letters, numbers, punctuation marks or symbols into numerous permutations.[26] And, "address harvesting software" means software that is specifically designed or marketed for use for- a)searching the Internet for electronic addresses; and, b) collecting, compiling, capturing or otherwise harvesting those electronic addresses."[27]	Altering Transmission Data "It is prohibited, in the course of a commercial activity, to alter or cause to be altered the transmission data in an electronic message so that the message is delivered to a destination other than or in addition to that specified by the sender, unless (a) the alteration is made with the express consent of the sender or the person to whom the message is sent, and the person altering or causing to be altered the data complies with subsection 11(4) of CASL; or (b) the alteration is made in accordance with a court order.[28] Installation of Computer Program A person must not, in the course of a commercial activity, install or cause to be installed a computer program on any other person's computer system or, having so installed or caused to be installed a computer program, cause an electronic message to be sent from that computer system, unless (a) the person has obtained the express consent of the owner or an authorized user of the computer system and complies with subsection 11(5) of the CASL; or (b) the person is acting in accordance with a court order. (2) A person contravenes subsection (1) only if the computer system is located in Canada at the relevant time or if the person either is in Canada at the relevant time or is acting under the direction of a person who is in Canada at the time when they give the directions."[29]	Electronic mail for direct marketing purposes where the identity or address of the sender is concealed A person shall neither transmit, nor instigate the transmission of, a communication for the purposes of direct marketing by means of electronic mail- (a) where the identity of the person on whose behalf the communication has been sent has been disguised or concealed; or (b)where a valid address to which the recipient of the communication may send a request that such communications cease has not been provided.
Types of Senders Covered	Spammers and beneficiaries- the term ''sender'', when used with respect to a commercial electronic mail message, means a person who initiates such a message and whose product, service, or Internet web site is advertised or promoted by the message."[30]	Spammers and beneficiaries- A person must not send, or cause to be sent, a commercial electronic message that: (a) has an Australian link; and (b) is not a designated commercial electronic message.[31]	Spammers, beneficiaries, and providers of support services "sender" means a person who sends a message, causes the message to be sent, or authorizes the sending of the message.[32] Further, persons aiding or abetting the offences under Section 9 or 11 are also punishable under the Act.[33]	Spammers and beneficiaries- Under Section 6, it is prohibited to send or cause or permit to be sent to an electronic address a CEM. Under Section 7, It is prohibited, in the course of a commercial activity, to alter or cause to be altered the transmission data in a CEM. Under Section 8, A person must not, in the course of a commercial activity, install or cause to be installed a computer program on any other person's computer system or, having so installed or caused to be installed a computer program, cause an electronic message to be sent from that computer system.	Spammers and beneficiaries- The texts of Sections 19, 20, 21 and 22 all prohibit the transmission as well as the instigation of the transmission of, communications for direct marketing purposes without the consent of the recipient.
Who Can Sue	FTC[34], Attorney Generals[35], ISPs and IAPs[36] and most recently even companies/private entities[37]	Australian Communications and Media Agency (ACMA)[38]	Any injured party, including individual users.[39]	Any injured party, including individual users.[40]	Any person who suffers damage by reason of any contravention of any of the requirements of these Regulations.[41]
Exceptions	Transactional or Relationship Messages [42] where, The term ''transactional or relationship message'' means an electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is- (i) to facilitate, complete, or confirm a commercial transaction; (ii) to provide warranty information, product recall information, etc. with respect to a commercial product or service used or purchased by the recipient; (iii) to provide notifications- (I) concerning a change in the terms or features of; (II) of a change in the recipient's standing or status with respect to; or (III) information with respect to a subscription, membership, account, loan, or comparable ongoing commercial relationship involving the ongoing purchase or use by the recipient of products or services offered by the sender; (iv) to provide information directly related to an employment relationship or related benefit plan in which the recipient is currently involved, participating, or enrolled; or (v) to deliver goods or services, including product updates or upgrades, that the recipient is entitled to receive under the terms of a transaction that the recipient has previously agreed to enter into with the sender.	Designated Commercial Electronic Message (DCEM). A DCEM is a message containing purely factual information, any related comments of non-commercial nature and some limited commercial information as to the identity of the sender company/individual.[43] A message is a DCEMs if- a) the sending of the message is authorized by any of the following bodies: (i) a government body; (ii) a registered political party; (iii) a religious organization; (iv) a charity or charitable institution; and (b) the message relates to goods or services; and (c) the body is the supplier, or prospective supplier, of the goods or services concerned.[44] Messages from educational institutions: an electronic message is a *DCEM* if: (a) the sending of the message is authorised by an educational institution; and (b) either or both of the following subparagraphs applies: (i) the relevant electronic account‑holder is, or has been, enrolled as a student in that institution; (ii) a member or former member of the household of the relevant electronic account‑holder is, or has been, enrolled as a student in that institution; and (c) the message relates to goods or services; and (d) the institution is the supplier, or prospective supplier, of the goods or services concerned.	Electronic Messages authorized by the Government[45] The Act does not apply to any electronic message where the sending of the message is authorized by the Government or a statutory body on the occurrence of any public emergency, in the public interest or in the interests of public security or national defence.[46] A certificate signed by the Minister shall be conclusive evidence of existence of a public emergency and the other above stated matters.[47]	Family and Personal relationships, where "Family relationship" is a relationship between two people related through marriage, a common law partnership, or any legal parent-child relationship who have had direct, voluntary two-way communications; and "personal relationship" means a relationship between two people who have had direct, voluntary two-way communications where it would be reasonable to conclude that the relationship is personal.[48] Mails sent to an individual who practices a particular commercial activity with the mail containing solely an inquiry or application related to that activity[49]. A mail which - provides a quote or estimate for the supply of a product, goods, a service, etc. if requested by the recipient; · facilitates, completes or confirms a commercial transaction that the recipient previously agreed to enter into with the sender; · provides warranty information, product recall information etc. about a product, goods or a service that the recipient uses, has used or has purchased; · provides notification of factual information about- (i) the ongoing use or ongoing purchase by the recipient of a product, goods or a service offered under a subscription, membership, account, loan or similar relationship by the sender, or · provides information directly related to an employment relationship or related benefit plan in which the recipient is currently involved, is currently participating or is currently enrolled; · delivers a product, goods or a service, including updates or upgrades, that the recipient is entitled to receive under the terms of a transaction that they have previously entered into with the sender.[50] · Telecommunications service provider merely because the service provider provides a telecommunications service that enables the transmission of the message.[51] · CEMs which are two-way voice communication between individuals sent by means of a facsimile or a voice recording sent to a telephone account.[52]	A person may send or instigate the sending of electronic mail for the purposes of direct marketing where - (a) the contact details of the recipient of that electronic mail in the course of the sale or negotiations for the sale of a product or service to that recipient; (b) the direct marketing is in respect of that person's similar products and services only; and (c) the recipient has been given a simple means of refusing (free of charge except for the costs of the transmission of the refusal) the use of his contact details for the purposes of such direct marketing, at the time that the details were initially collected, and, where he did not initially refuse the use of the details, at the time of each subsequent communication.[53]
Penalties	Civil and Criminal Statutory damages- Amount calculated by multiplying the number of violations by up to $250. Total amount of damages may not exceed $2,000,000. [54] Imprisonment- upto 5 years.[55] Forfeiture from the offender, of- i) any property, real or personal, constituting or traceable to gross proceeds obtained from such offense; ii) any equipment, software, or other technology used or intended to be used to commit or to facilitate the commission of such offense.[56]	Civil only For a body corporate without prior record, for upto 2 contraventions, civil penalty should not exceed i) 100 penalty units if the if the civil penalty provision is subsection 16(1), (6) or (9); or ii) 50 penalty units in any other case. For more than 2 contraventions, civil penalty should not exceed i) 2000 penalty units if the if the civil penalty provision is subsection 16(1), (6) or (9); or ii) 1000 penalty units in any other case. For a body corporate with prior record, for upto 2 contravention, civil penalty should not exceed i) 500 penalty units if the if the civil penalty provision is subsection 16(1), (6) or (9); or ii) 250 penalty units in any other case. For more than 2 contraventions, civil penalty should not exceed i) 10,000 penalty units if the if the civil penalty provision is subsection 16(1), (6) or (9); or ii) 5,000 penalty units in any other case. For a person without prior record, for upto 2 contraventions, civil penalty should not exceed i) 20 penalty units if the if the civil penalty provision is subsection 16(1), (6) or (9); or ii) 10 penalty units in any other case. For more than 2 contraventions, civil penalty should not exceed i) 400 penalty units if the if the civil penalty provision is subsection 16(1), (6) or (9); or ii) 200 penalty units in any other case. For a person with prior record, for upto 2 contravention, civil penalty should not exceed i) 100 penalty units if the if the civil penalty provision is subsection 16(1), (6) or (9); or ii) 50 penalty units in any other case. For more than 2 contraventions, civil penalty should not exceed i) 2,000 penalty units if the if the civil penalty provision is subsection 16(1), (6) or (9); or ii) 1,000 penalty units in any other case.[57]	Civil only i) Injunction ii) Damages- calculated in terms of loss suffered as a direct or indirect result of the contravention of the Act. ii) Statutory Damages not exceeding $25 for each CEM; and not exceeding in the aggregate $1 million, unless the plaintiff proves that his actual loss from such CEMs exceeds $1 million.[58] iii)Costs of litigation to the plaintiff.[59]	Civil only Administrative Monetary Penalty , the purpose of which is to promote compliance with the Act and not to punish.[60] The maximum penalty for a violation is $1,000,000 in the case of an individual, and $10,000,000 in the case of any other person.[61]	Civil on private action; Criminal for non-compliance with IC's notice A person who suffers damage by reason of any contravention of any of the requirements of these Regulations by any other person shall be entitled to bring proceedings for compensation from that other person for that damage.[62] The enforcement authority for these regulations is Britain's Information Commissioner who oversees both the Act and the Regulations, and investigates complaints and makes findings in the form of various types of notices.[63] Failure to comply with any notice issued by the Information Commissioner is a criminal offence and is punishable with a fine of upto £5000 in England and Wales and £10,000 Scotland.[64]

THE PROBLEM OF SPAM -WHY IT PERSISTS

As per a study conducted by Kaspersky Lab in 2014, 66.34% of all messages exchanged over the internet were spam.[65] Over the 2000s, several countries recognized the threats posed by spam and enacted specific legislations to tackle the same. The ones taken into consideration in this paper are the CAN-SPAM Act, 2003 of the United States, Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, The Spam Act, 2003 of Australia, Singapore's Spam Control Act, 2007 and The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations, 2003 (United Kingdom). As will be analyzed in the course of this paper, none of these laws have evolved to become comprehensive mechanisms for combating spam yet. Nevertheless, post the enactment of these laws, spam has reduced as a percentage of the net email traffic; however, the absolute quantity of spam has increased owing to the exponential growth of email traffic universally.[66]

Who Benefits from Spam?

1. Commercial establishments - Spamming is one of the most cost-effective means of promoting products and services to a large number of potential customers. Spams are not necessarily duplicitous and often contain legitimate information to which a fraction of the recipients respond positively. As per a recent study, for spam to be profitable, only 1 in 25,000 spam recipients needs to open the email, get enticed, and make a gray-market purchase.[67]

2. Non-commercial establishments benefitting from advertisements - Many seemingly non-profit messages benefit from revenue generated through advertisements when recipients visit their site. Advertisers pay these sites either per click or per impression.

3. Spammers - The costs incurred by spammers largely include the cost of e-mail/phone number harvesting and the cost of paying botnet operators. As compared to the revenue generated as a percentage of profits earned by the merchant on whose behalf spam messages are sent, these costs are negligible.[68]

Thus, spamming proves to be an activity that involves minimal investment and often yields some response from prospective clients.

The impact of spam is clearly widespread. Presently, India lacks a specific anti-spam legislation. In consideration of the swelling growth of spam across the globe and the increasing number of Indian users, it is of utmost urgency that a specific legislation is formulated to tackle the issue.

OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSIS

1. Definition of Spam

a. 'Spam' must be defined in a technologically neutral manner

The legislations analyzed in this paper deal with either one or a cluster of modes of communication through which spam may be sent. However, it is essential that 'spam' is defined in a manner that is technologically neutral. Most commercial spam is aimed at promoting products and services to a large number of prospective customers. Thus, making only spam e-mails illegal, like the CAN-SPAM Act does, fails to address the issue wholly as companies would always retain the option of sending unsolicited messages through other communicative devices. It becomes an issue of merely switching modes of communication without there being any actual deterrence to spamming. Thus, a narrow understanding of spam, limiting it to one or few modes of communication, is problematic and for a model law, a broader definition that discourages unsolicited messages sent via any network is warranted.

b. Non-commercial spam must also be addressed

The five legislations examined in this paper address only the issue of unsolicited 'commercial' mails/messages. For instance, under the CAN-SPAM, a commercial mail means " any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service". Singapore's Spam Control Act defines a commercial message in a similar fashion but more elaborately. CASL, while limiting the scope of the law to commercial mail, additionally prescribes that such communication need not have a profit motive. Australia's Spam Act defines a commercial message as a message that has the purpose of offering, advertising or promoting goods or services or the supplier or prospective supplier of goods or services. Under the EC Directive, the term used is 'marketing communication'; however, in essence, it includes only commercial communications.[69] These definitions suffer from an obvious exclusion error. It is known from experience that not all unsolicited messages received are in pursuance of commercial interests. Often, unsolicited mails and messages are received with explicit sexual content as well as promoting political and religious agendas sent by party volunteers.

Thus, it would be in higher consonance with the greater aim of curbing spam to broaden the scope of these legislations to address both commercial as well as non-commercial messages.

c. Bulk requirement and its quantification

The Singaporean law makes 'sent in bulk' a mandatory requirement for spam. However, deciding what quantity of a particular message qualifies it as bulk is difficult. If an objective threshold is set, say 100 messages in 24 hours, then anything short of that, say even 99 messages, go unaddressed simply because it does not meet the statutory requirement of being in bulk. This enables spammers to misuse the law by marginally falling short of the threshold and still continuing to spam. The issue here is comparable to the one faced in setting age as bar to criminal culpability. No matter what, any number arrived at is likely to be arbitrary and consequently subject of criticism. A possible way to tackle this would be to strengthen the unsubscribe mechanisms by virtue of which individuals are able to, at the very least, stop receiving unsolicited mails. For the determination of threshold for State action and its feasibility, a much more detailed study is merited.

2. Consent Requirement

	Opt- out Model	Opt-in Model	Double Opt-in Model
Countries following the model	United States of America and Singapore	Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom	None at present.
When messages may be sent	At all times until recipient voluntarily opts out/unsubscribes.	Only after the recipient voluntarily opts-in/subscribes to receive messages by submitting his/her contact details to be part of a particular mailing list.	Only after the recipient responds in the affirmative to the confirmation mail sent by the sender on receiving an opt-in request from the recipient.
Specific requirements	1. The mail/message must bear a clear identifier of its content. E.g. marked as 'ADVT' for advertisements; 2. An 'unsubscribe' option must be provided in the message which may be utilized by the recipient to express his/her disinterest in the message; and 3. The message must conspicuously bear a valid physical postal address.	N/A	N/A
Advantages	Promotes commercial speech rights- Since the default position presumes the right to market, average collection rates are considerably higher as more emails can be sent to more people.	1. Reduction in unsolicited messages- Commercial messages are not sent until the recipient voluntarily consents to receiving such messages by submitting his/her contact information. 2. Availability of unsubscribe option- Even after a recipient voluntarily opts in, he/she still has the right to withdraw from such messages by unsubscribing.	1. Ensures people are entering their information correctly, which equals a cleaner list and lowers bounce rates. 2. Reduces the probability of spam complaints because subscribers have had to take the extra step to confirm their consent.
Disadvantages	1. This merely places the burden of reduction of spam on the recipients. 2. The functionality of the 'unsubscribe' link is itself questionable. Very often these links themselves are fraudulent. In such a case, the recipient is further harmed before any opting-out can even take place. 3. In the absence of any strict regulatory oversight, there exists no incentive for the senders to strictly address unsubscribe requests.	1. Consent may be obtained in fact but not in spirit through inconspicuous pre-ticked check boxes. 2. E-mail addresses may be added to a list by spambots. Where, the person 'opted-in' may not actually be the person opting in. 3. Errors may be made when entering emails; a typo may result in someone submitting an address that is not theirs. 4. Legitimate addresses may be added by someone who does not own the address.	1. Genuine subscribers may not understand clearly the confirmation process and fail to click the verification link. 2. Confirmation emails may get stuck in spam filters.

The comparison above highlights that the opt-out model as well as the opt-in model may leave loopholes. The opt-in model has been advocated for as the better model as compared to the opt-out model as it prohibits the sending of messages unless the recipient consents to receiving such messages. However, as pointed out above, in this model consent may be given by entities other than the owner of the contact details. In such a situation, a double opt-in model may be a viable option to contemplate as it is the only model where it can be ensured that only the addressee is enabled to successfully opt-in.[70]

Presently, the double opt-in model has not been adopted by any of the countries discussed in this paper. Nonetheless, it seems to have the potential to aid the fight against spam more effectively than the existing models. Its real efficacy however, shall be proven only on practical implementation.

3. Exceptions

a. Family and Personal Relationships

Under the CASL, an exception is made for 'personal relationships' and 'family relationship'. However, these terms are defined quite narrowly. For instance, family relationship is defined as 'a relationship between two people related through marriage, a common law partnership, or any legal parent-child relationship and those individuals have had direct, voluntary, two-way communication'.^[71] This implies that in a situation where an individual wants to send a message offering to sell something to an individual in his extended family, say his cousins, doing so without obtaining their consent first, would qualify his mail as spam under the CASL. This would become especially problematic in the Indian context where comparatively larger family structures prevail.

In the anti-spam legislations of the other four countries, no such exceptions are made. Quite obviously, these exceptions are of crucial significance and must be provided in any anti-spam legislation; however, it is important that they are defined in a manner such that their actual purpose i.e. of exclusion of familial and personal relationships from regulations applicable to spammers, is effectively achieved and the law does not become a creator for unnecessary litigation.

b. Transactional Messages

The term 'transactional messages' is used only under the CAN-SPAM Act of the USA. It basically covers messages sent when the recipient stands in an existing transactional relationship with the sender and the mail contains information specific to the recipient. It also includes employment relationships. In CASL, a similar exception is made under Section 6(6). The section is worded almost identically as the CAN-SPAM provision, though the term 'transactional messages' is not used. In the UK laws, messages for the purpose of direct marketing may be sent where the contact information of the recipient is received in the course of the sale or negotiations for the sale of a product or service to that recipient, thus implying an existing transactional relationship. One added proviso under the UK law is that the recipient must be clearly and distinctively given the opportunity to object, free of charge and in an easy manner, to the use of the e-mail address when collected and on the occasion of each message in case the customer has not initially refused such use.[72]

An exception for transactional messages is essential to ensure freedom of commercial speech rights even while effectively tackling spam. In the formulation of a model law, a combination of the American and the English laws may be workable.

c. Governmental Messages

The Spam Act, 2003 of Australia makes an exemption for 'designated commercial electronic message (DCEM)'. This exemption is to avoid any unintended restriction on communication between the government and the community.^[73] In order to be a DCEM, a message must-

1. Be authorized by the government;

2. Contain purely factual information and any related comments of non-commercial nature; and

3. Contain some information as to the identity of the sender company/individual.

DCEMs need not always be sent by government bodies and may also be sent by third parties authorized by the government.^[74] Such messages are exempt from the consent requirement as well as the unsubscribe option requirement but must comply with the identifier requirement. However, where government bodies are operating in a competitive environment, the provisions of the act would apply normally to them.^[75]

Similarly, Singapore's Spam Control Act does not apply to any electronic message where the sending of the message is authorized by the Government or a statutory body on the occurrence of any public emergency, in public interest or in the interests of public security or national defence.

These exemptions are essential in order to enable free communication of important information between the government and the citizens. The Singaporean wording of the exception is rather broad and would give the government immense space for misusing the law. Such a wording might be more effective if supplemented with the Australian proviso wherein governmental communications operating in a competitive environment are excluded.

4. Penalties

a. Penalties must be higher than benefit from spamming

If the penalty prescribed itself is too low, such that loss suffered from paying penalties is lower than net benefit from spamming, the spammer is not sufficiently deterred. Four out of the five countries analyzed in this paper prescribe only civil penalties in the form of fines for spamming. Recently, a Facebook spammer was found to have made a profit of $200 million in a year.[76] For instance, as noted above, the Australian law sets a limit for penalty at $1 million. Thus, such a penalty would constitute a small fraction of the profit from spamming and would not deter a spammer.

b. High penalty does not imply effective deterrence where probability of prosecution is low.

The CAN-SPAM Act prescribes the harshest penalties including both civil as well as criminal penalties. However, it has been rather ineffective in reducing spam. This is for the reason that this Act is more about how to spam legally than anything else. It is more like- ' you can spam but do not use false headers.'[77] As a consequence, unintentional spam from ignorant commercial establishments has reduced. However, due to easy compliance standards, the 'real' spammers still go undetected to a large extent.[78] Thus, even moderate penalties may serve as good deterrents where the probability of prosecution is high.

c. Effective enforcement is the key to effective deterrence.

The cornerstone of an effective spam law is effective enforcement. Penalties must be enforced in a manner that the cost of punishment is always higher than the benefit from spamming and the probability of conviction is high. In order to implement legislative measures effectively, governments should also undertake an information campaign on spam issues targeting users, business communities, private sector groups and other stakeholders as the one primary reason for sustenance of spam is the response received from certain recipients. Such supplementary activities would also facilitate the preservation of commercial rights as excessive penalties could inhibit regular commercial activities.

CONCLUSION

The observations made in this paper are crucial to the formulation of a model anti-spam law for India. The most important part of any ant-spam legislation would be the definition of 'spam' which, as established above, must be technologically neutral in order to be able to address as much unsolicited communication as possible. On the question of consent, a double opt-in is what this paper would propose. This model has been contemplated and recommended by academic and policy researchers as a possibly more effective consent model for spam laws; however, it has not been codified as a legal regime till date. It could be a rather groundbreaking approach that India could adopt as this clearly is the only model where 'opting-in' is realized in fact and in spirit. Further, exceptions are necessary in order to prevent the abuse of laws making certain such exceptions do not suffer from inclusive or exclusion errors. A combination of the exceptions under the Australian and the American laws seems ideal at this stage of research. In terms of penalty, this paper observed that only prescribing harsh penalties is not sufficient to effectively deter spammers but efficient modes of enforcement have to be formulated to ensure actual deterrence. Lastly, while a well-drafted national anti-spam legislation is clearly the need of the hour for India; additional steps have to be taken towards sensitizing citizens to the fact that the problem of spam is real and a costly threat to the communications infrastructure of the country and combat has to begin at the individual level.

[1] CAN-SPAM Act, § 7706(f) (7).

[2] Spam Act, 2003, § 7

[3] Spam Control Act, 2007, § 7(2)

[4] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, § 6.

[5] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, § 12.

[6] 15 U.S.C. § 7701 (2003).

[7] CAN-SPAM Act, Section 3 (2)(A)

[8] Spam Act, 2003, § 6

[9] Spam Control Act, 2007, § 5(1)

[10] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, § 6

[11] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, § 1(1)

[12] Regulation 19, EC Directives, 2003

[13] Regulation 20, EC Directives, 2003

[14] Regulation 21, EC Directives, 2003

[15] Regulation 22, EC Directives, 2003

[16] Section 11, Data Protection Act, 1998

[17] CAN-SPAM Act, Section 5(5)

[18] Spam Act, 2003, § 16(2)

[19] Spam Act, 2003, Schedule 2 (2)

[20] Spam Control Act, 2007 Section 11, Schedule 2(2)

[21] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, Section 6

[22] CAN-SPAM Act, 2003, Section 5(d)

[23] Spam Control Act, 2007, Schedule 2, 3(1), Section 11

[24] Chapter 47 of title 18, U.S.C., § 1037, inserted through an amendment by the CAN-SPAM Act, § 4(a) (1); '§ 5(A)(1).

[25] Spam Control Act, 2007, '§ 9

[26] Spam Control Act, 2007, '§ 2

[27] Spam Control Act, 2007, '§ 2

[28] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, § 7

[29] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, § 8

[30] CAN-SPAM Act, 2003, § 3(16)(A)

[31] Spam Act, 2003, Section 16(1), Section 8

[32] Spam Control Act, 2007, § 2

[33] Spam Control Act, 2007, § 12

[34] CAN-SPAM Act, 2003, § 7(a)(c)(d)

[35] CAN-SPAM Act, 2003, § 7(f)

[36] CAN-SPAM Act, 2003, § 7(g)

[37] MySpace, Inc. v. The Globe.com, Inc., 2007 WL 1686966 (C.D. Cal., Feb. 27, 2007)

[38] Spam Act, 2003, § 26(1)

[39] Spam Control Act, 2007, § 13

[40] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, § 47

[41] Regulation 30(1), EC Directives, 2003

[42] CAN-SPAM Act, 2003, § 3(2)(B)

[43] Spam Act, 2003, Schedule 1, § 2

[44] Spam Act, 2003, Schedule 1, § 3

[45] Spam Control Act, 2007, § 7(3)

[46] Spam Control Act, 2007, First Schedule Clause (1)

[47] Spam Control Act, 2007, First Schedule Clause (2)

[48] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, § 6(5a)

[49] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, § 6(5b)

[50] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, § 6(6)

[51] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, § 7

[52] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, § 8

[53]Section 22(3), EC Directives, 2003

[54] CAN-SPAM Act, § 7 (f)(3)(A).

[55] CAN-SPAM Act, § 4 (b)

[56] CAN-SPAM Act, § 4 (c)

[57] Spam Act, 2003, Sections 24, 25

[58] Spam Control Act, 2007, § 14

[59] Spam Control Act, 2007, § 15

[60] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, § 20(2)

[61] Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, 2014, § 20(4)

[62] Regulation 30(1), EC Directive, 2003

[63] Regulations 31-32, EC Directive, 2003

[64] Section 47 and 60, Data Protection Act, 1998

[65] Spam and Phishing Statistics Report Q1-2014, Kaspersky Lab

http://usa.kaspersky.com/internet-security-center/threats/spam-statistics-report-q1-2014#.VVQxNndqN5I (last accessed 29^th May, 2015)

[66] Snow and Jayakar, Krishna, Can We Can Spam? A Comparison of National Spam Regulations, August 15, 2013. TPRC 41: The 41st Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy.

[67] Justin Rao and David Reiley, The Economics of Spam, Vol. 26, No. 3 The Journal of Economic Perspectives (2012), p. 104.

[68] Supra n. 66; p. 7

[69] Refer Table in Section 1.

[70] Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Spam, Spam Bots, and Double Opt-in E-mail Lists, April 21, 2010; available at http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/wilson-double-optin/ (last accessed 29^th May 2015).

[71] Section 2(a), Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations, http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/00273.html (last accessed 29^th May 2015)

[72] Evangelos Moustakas, C. Ranganathan and Penny Duquenoy, Combating Spam Through Legislation: A Comparative Analysis Of US And European Approaches, available at http://ceas.cc/2005/papers/146.pdf

[73] Spam Act 2003- A Practical Guide for Government, Australian Communications Authority, available at- http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/consumer_info/spam/spam_act_pracguide_govt.pdf (last accessed 29^th May 2015)

[74] Ibid

[75] Id

[76] Charles Arthur, Facebook spammers make $200m just posting links, researchers say, The Guardian, 28^th August 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/28/facebook-spam-202-million-italian-research (last accessed 29^th May, 2015)

[77] Evangelos Moustakas, C. Ranganathan and Penny Duquenoy, Combating Spam Through Legislation: A Comparative Analysis Of US And European Approaches, available at http://ceas.cc/2005/papers/146.pdf

[78] Carolyn Duffy Marsan, CAN-SPAM: What went wrong?, 6^th October 2008, available at

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2276180/security/can-spam--what-went-wrong-.html (last accessed 29^th May, 2015)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/anti-spam-laws-in-different-jurisdictions

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