At a symposium by The Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research (C-DEP) on May 17, when asked to clarify if OTT communication services like WhatsApp and Signal are regulated under the Telecom Act, Niraj Verma, the administrator of the Universal Services Obligation (USOF) Fund and the Additional Secretary of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT),...

The Delhi High Court is set to hear the copyright infringement case against online shadow libraries for scholarly journals, LibGen and Sci-Hub, on August 23, 2024. In 2020, publishing giants Elsevier, Wiley Periodicals (including its Indian division), and the American Chemical Society filed a lawsuit against LibGen and Sci-hub for copyright infringement...

May 15, 2023 was the last date for public consultation on the draft Digital Competition Bill, 2024. We’re not sure if the Ministry of Corporate Affairs will make the list of submissions public, so in public interest, to add to the public discourse on the issue, MediaNama is compiling a list of submissions that are either already public, or organisations...

The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization, released a report reviewing the data privacy practices of 25 popular dating apps and found most of them severely lacking it. This is a follow-up to a similar 2021 review, and reveals that dating apps have gotten much worse. While dating apps require users to provide a lot of personal information, the...

One part of the Telecommunication Act 2023 covers broadcasting and to that extent, over-the-top (OTT) services would be covered under the scope of the Act, says Niraj Verma, administrator of the Universal Services Obligation (USOF) Fund and Additional Secretary of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Inclusion of the OTT services under the...

MapmyIndia, a digital map service, reported positive financial results for the financial year 2023-2024. The company showed a 35% YoY growth in revenue from operations, from 281.5 crore rupees to 379 crore. The total income also grew by 32%, from 215 to 417 crores. The Profit After Tax (PAT) stood at 134.4 crore, with a 32% margin, after growing 25%...