
India Pushes Back Against Tech ‘Colonization’ by Internet Giants - petethomas
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/technology/india-technology-american-giants.html
======
wtmt
> "As India sets the new rules of the game, it is seeking inspiration from
> China. Although India does not want to go as far as China, which has cut off
> its internet from the global one, officials admire Beijing’s tight control
> over citizens’ data and how it has nurtured homegrown internet giants like
> Alibaba and Baidu by limiting foreign competition. At the same time,
> regulators do not want to push out the American internet services that
> hundreds of millions of Indians depend on."

This is the main point. The main reason the government wants data to be stored
locally and is also looking at controlling companies is for surveillance. But
unlike China, not all platforms have Indian created equivalents. Fortunately
for the citizens of India, regardless of the state of surveillance in the
U.S., the U.S. companies do fight a lot more against these controlling
measures than any Indian born company ever would. Indian companies like
Reliance Jio, which considers "data as the new oil" (the parent company,
Reliance, was built on crude oil), and many others have had a thirst for more
data for sometime now. [Incidentally, the logo of "Jio" is a mirror image of
"Oil" in a certain font]

> “There is a strong feeling in many quarters that the reason that India has
> not been able to develop a Tencent or Baidu or Alibaba is because we have
> not been nuanced in our policies.”

This sounds kind of naïve. It's not because of data related policies that
these haven't happened.

> "Officials were furious after the Cambridge Analytica scandal this year
> revealed that Facebook had shared private information on 87 million users,
> including 560,000 Indians, with a political consulting firm that had sought
> to influence Indian elections."

This is ironical, because the governments (both central and state governments)
didn't even acknowledge issues or took responsibility or made a statement that
data leaks from their own sites would be dealt with seriously. Their game is
like this — "if we leak data, then it's not an issue, but if someone else is,
then we will be outraged". It's just pseudo-nationalistic sentiment that the
current central government has been fostering. A search for "Aadhaar data
leaks" will show many such instances and the lack of a decent response from
the governments.

> "They also warned that India has fewer legal protections than the United
> States against government searches and data requests, so private data stored
> in the country could more easily end up in the hands of the police."

This is very true. The central government has shown that it has very little
interest in getting a good privacy law in place. The one recently released
publicly has so many issues that concerned citizens have started
[https://saveourprivacy.in/](https://saveourprivacy.in/) . Please share this
site with every Indian citizen you know.

As an Indian citizen, my only hope is that foreign tech companies resist the
crippling moves by the executive. The courts move very slowly, but they're the
(mostly) dependable arm here.

~~~
mirimir
I hadn't realized until recently how India is so much like China regarding
surveillance and social control. I guess that it reflects how biased against
China I've been.

When I've read about the Chinese government's concerns over social unrest,
I've empathized with the dissidents. I mean, Tibet and Xinjiang are occupied
nations! But I get that China is an extremely diverse country, overall, with
lots of ethnic tension.

And conversely, when I've read about the Indian government's concerns over
social unrest, I've empathized with the victims of the dissidents. Muslims
persecuted by Hindus. Women persecuted by misogynists.

So damn, it's a hard problem. And worse, with increased migration driven by
social chaos and war (and eventually, by global climate change), it's becoming
an issue in many places. Including the US, where I happen to live.

~~~
coldtea
> _I mean, Tibet and Xinjiang are occupied nations!_

Would you say that for Puerto Rico? Or California and Texas for that matter?
Or how about Hawaii? Or, heck, anything that's not an Indian reservation...

Or does it only apply to China's neighbors, with which they had millennia of
history with rulers and populations going back and forth? E.g. the Qing
Chinese ruled Tiber as far back as the 17th century...

~~~
housingpost
Can any of the places in china even discuss independence in the open? Well,
every place in the US can. They even can leave if they get enough votes. Go
ahead and let me know when anyone in China gets to vote on anything.

~~~
coldtea
> _Can any of the places in china even discuss independence in the open? Well,
> every place in the US can_

Only when there's no real prospect of it, and as long as such discussion
remains a fringe activity that gets lost in the media noise. Oh, and as long
as those discussing it are white, and not e.g. native american, or latinos,
and such.

There's a long history, from this:

"In the mid-century, the "Cointelpro program" was a project conducted by the
United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to surveil, infiltrate,
discredit, and disrupt domestic political organizations which it classified as
suspect or subversive. The police documented thousands of extensive carpetas
(files) concerning individuals of all social groups and ages. Approximately
75,000 persons were listed as under political police surveillance. Historians
and critics found that the massive surveillance apparatus was directed
primarily against Puerto Rico's independence movement." (wikipedia)

to this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre)

that suggests that they can't really discuss it that openly.

This didn't go down very well either:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America)

------
firasd
As an Indian I'm not sure I endorse all this as 'anti-colonialism'. This is a
bunch of government bureaucrats who want e.g. data to be stored in the country
so they can access personal info more easily...

~~~
Eridrus
Colonialism is a loaded word, but if you look at India trying to force cell
phone companies to manufacture in India I think there is a clear desire to
drive economic development through policy. I don't really blame them either,
China offers a pretty compelling example of what state intervention in the
market can do.

~~~
firasd
Yeah. Many countries do that sort of thing, like the US imposing tariffs on
car imports unless a some of the assembly is done domestically. I wouldn't
necessarily endorse too much protectionism either—India has a clear example of
the benefits of moving towards an open market after 1991. In fact the biggest
Indian startup exit is Flipkart, bought by Walmart, which demonstrates the
value of free flow of capital.

~~~
redditmigrant
There is also the example of China which has policies that favor local
companies and China has created dramatically more economic value for it's
citizens than India's open market.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Correlation isn’t causation. China could have done even better than it did if
it was a more open market, and indeed it didn’t start growing rapidly until
the government started getting out of the way in the 80s.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
England, France and the US have vested interests in China not growing, atleast
a very powerful minority do. Opening markets when these foreign actors very
recently attacked your population is basically suicide.

Open markets require a certain level of development. Post-Xi (and his anti-
corruption measures), this will be possible.

~~~
antidesitter
> Opening markets when these foreign actors very recently attacked your
> population is basically suicide.

Do you have evidence to support this claim? You seem to be conflating these
countries’ governments with their businesses.

Also, can you clarify what you mean by “attacked their population”?

~~~
IllogicalLogic
>"Also, can you clarify what you mean by “attacked their >population”?"

The opium epedemic and wars drove the Chinese economy into the ground.

British invasion and colonization of India pushed one of the top trading
nations and #1 GDP (China & India competed to maintain #1 status for 2000
years) in the world into the ground.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The decline of the Qing dynasty drove the economy into the ground even before
the British started opium there. China loves to blame foreigners for all of
their problems, but a lot of it was self inflicted.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
Your timeline is a little off. The Qing dynasty decline was partly to blame
but be sure that almost 1/4 of Chinese young adults under the age 25 being
addicted to illegal opium (thanks to western traders) didn't help. If you
think that wasn't a contributing factor, it is being ahistorical.

US and Western Europe is facing this growing opioid issue today (during an
economic decline), if we are not careful, we will see very clearly the effects
(both socially and economically) of opioids poisoning the gene pool en masse.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
That is like blaming the Mongolians for the fall of the Song Dynasty?
Symptomatic of a dynasty in decline? Yes. Causal of that decline? No.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
So western power invading and enslaving China's major trading partners and
drugging their population had 0 negative economic effect?

It seems the history books you have been exposed to detail a narrative that
economic/trade flow history (narrative independent) does not recognize...

~~~
seanmcdirmid
No, it was symptomatic of a declining dynasty, it didn’t cause the decline in
the first place. And even then, it wasn’t as comprehensive as you describe,
the Japanese did way more damage to the Qing than the british did.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
Japan did alot of damage at the latter end of the Qing Dynasty too, yes (same
time as peak opium epedemic/imports).

What followed a decade after was very telling though (I will skip the Boxer
Rebellion but worth reading up on)....

Boxer Rebellion (somewhat Euro-centric perspective, but I will leave it to
your objectivity, to see the otherside) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFjHff-
zaKY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFjHff-zaKY)

In 1905, Roosevelt signed a secret treaty with the Japanese on his Imperial
Cruise, allowing them to expand into Korea and the rest of Asia.

I don't blame you for not knowing this history, most US historians are/were
unaware. Even congress was unaware of the treaty until the documents were
released many many years later (post nobel peace prize being handed out).

It's a big part of why most Americans believed Pearl Harbor was potentially a
precursor to a Japanese invasion attempt... When it was actually just a slap
for breaking a 4 decade long secret treaty that greenlit Japanese expansion
(USA renegged on this treaty during the 2nd Sino-Japanese war).

Imperial Cruise
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0AJ59vqzzg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0AJ59vqzzg)

------
mark_l_watson
I probably have a minority opinion here, but I think countries should as much
as possible have their own tech stacks. There are many ways to do this: home
grown web platforms, customized versions of Chromebooks, open source software,
etc.

To me one of the pleasures of the world is different cultures, ethnicities,
food, local politics, etc. I don’t want a “homogenized world” in which
everything seems the same in different countries.

~~~
bacon_waffle
While I can relate to the desire to visit exotic parts of the world (or
digital space), the important consideration is well being of the people who
live there.

Of course homogeneity is not what we want, and not just because it's boring
for visitors. But, I don't think that encouraging people in a different
country/region/community (especially a smaller one) to roll their own tools is
helpful either. There is so much work involved in creating and maintaining all
this stuff - and the resources required are often in short supply. It seems
much better if we can all leverage off each other to make better things, to be
shared with the wider community.

I think the issue is more about preserving the right amount of local control
over tech used locally, rather than building that tech locally from local
tools.

------
sseth
This is such a poorly researched article.

In the beginning it quotes a railway official saying enough of foreign
influence. The Indian railways on the other hand is working closely with
Google to deliver free wifi in nearly 400 stations. Google has even formed a
susidiary to do this - Google Station.

There may be data protection and privacy requirements which come in - but that
is not about colonization. A lot of the awareness on privacy is coming as more
and more Indians come in touch with the internet and start wrestling with
these issues. More importantly, it is the widespread use of Aadhar, a
biometric unique identification system by the government which has also
triggered the supreme court to look at data privacy issues. Surely a
journalist worth their salt would mention this.

Rather than any push back against tech colonization, i would argue that what
we are seeing is a greater awareness on the part of government and citizens
about the need for data privacy, as well as concern around misuse of social
media. And it will extend to local and global players, obviously.

------
rajekas
It's true that India wants to build its own surveillance state. Every rational
great power wannabe will want to do so, just as every great power wannabe has
wanted a nuclear arsenal. Seems like table stakes in that rat race. And who
can blame anyone for doing so - it would be stupid to let data with security
implications to go through American companies with a potential backdoor after
Snowden and Wikileaks, just as it would be stupid to be caught without nuclear
weapons after Iraq and North Korea.

I am not as worried about the ease with which Indian citizen's privacy will be
violated if these laws pass - systems such as Aadhar are far greater threats
to our privacy and those come with the full force of the law and have support
from every government in power, whether NDA or UPA or some third alliance.
Plus, I would want foreign companies collecting data about Indian citizens to
be accountable to the Indian public. The Bhopal tragedy is a good example of
what happens when a foreign company isn't accountable to Indians in any manner
whatsoever.

Of course, one might doubt whether Indian efforts to secure our data will
withstand NSA or Chinese efforts to crack them, but we won't know until we
try!

------
phobosdeimos
China has a tech industry that is on par with Silicon Valley. India doesn't.

They are on the right track, America is going off the deep end and can no
longer be relied upon as a trustworthy and sane ally. The EU is desperately
trying to get away from that sinking ship but you can't undo 70 years of
geopolitical and economic reality easily.

~~~
amadeuspagel
Can you name one chinese software company that is as internationally
successful as SoundCloud or SAP?

~~~
z3phyr
Tencent? Kingdee?

~~~
splintercell
What are their business models? What do they do?

------
jopsen
> .. trying to establish strong data protections ... as Europe did, while
> giving the government the right to obtain private information as it sees
> fit...

Data protections like the EU did may sound good. But it took the EU years to
develop the framework, another 4 years before into effect, and even more time
before it's fully adopted.

India doesn't exactly have a record for graceful administration (thinking of
the currency debacle). And if you do this with less elegance than what the EU
did.. you risk creating a huge (expensive) mess..

Tech platforms bring a lot of value. By enabling commerce and many local
enterprises. Trying to move too fast could have very bad consequences. Even
the slow stuff the EU did, was somewhat of a mess..

And then let's not even get started on the mess access to private information
without a warrant would bring..

I hope they move slow make something with less negative side effects than what
the EU did. Then this could be good.

------
pankajdoharey
Misleading article, there are local startups everywhere. But no one in India
is going to get rid of google, twitter , instagram , whatsapp or facebook, not
simply because there are no alternatives but also because, we are living in a
winners take all economy. Amazon is a fast growing ecommerce giant in India,
infact India is their fastest growing market so much so that Amazon gives its
Amazon prime service for as low as $20 per yr.

------
omarforgotpwd
"We don't want your foreign investment! We'll spend our own money building up
our economy thank you very much!"

------
walrus01
The Indian government has a long and well documented track record of
cluelessly attempting to censor and regulate the global internet, to serve
domestic special interests and religious fundamentalists and right wingers.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India)

------
naiveai
This whole thing is such a phenomenally stupid idea in nearly every way.
Foreign companies have had longer to develop and are superior in nearly every
single way. Why supress them? The data protection laws are a good idea, though
I suspect corruption and surveillance, which the Indian gov wants to keep,
will largely nullify any and all benefits of such laws.

~~~
matheusmoreira
> Why supress them?

Because they don't answer to the country's government.

US-based internet companies answer to the US government only. This is an
implication of nearly every site's terms of service. For example, Y
Combinator's says you can't post illegal stuff and even mentions the US
directly. The implication is "don't get _us_ in trouble here in the US -- we
couldn't care less what's legal or illegal in your country." Not very
respectful of their sovereignty.

Obviously, indian authorities hold nearly zero power over these companies.
They can't enforce indian laws on US citizens. It's not like they can show up
at their doorstep and arrest people for failing to comply with a court order
or something. Their only law enforcement weapon is to block the site,
preventing them from reaching indians at all. That's why having local
alternatives is extremely valuable.

------
manish_gill
"Colonization" is a heavily loaded word and it's frankly, immature from NYT to
use it. Data Protection Regulations (in the same vein as GDPR) are a good
thing for consumers.

As someone who is concerned about user and data privacy, I like these
developments. What's anti-colonial about it other than just a catchy headline?

------
davidp670
I'm surprised there isn't more of this from other countries like China

------
Teknoman117
So when India wants to limit the ability of foreign companies to undercut
local prices, it's a good thing. When America wants to do the same we're
suddenly the bad guys...

~~~
adamson
I don’t think the article made a value judgement about price protections

~~~
Teknoman117
It didn't, it was more of a poke at New York Times. They have harsh language
for any form of US protectionism whatsoever (some of their arguments are
certainly justified mind you), but not a peep when talking about India.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
Its a good point, if you overlook the fact that the British destroying the
Indian & Chinese economy (through war/invasion) created a vacuum for the US
economy (British colony at the time) to flourish.

So the US closing up trade at this point is immoral from a historical
perspective and shows an obscene level of hypocrisy when compared to what it
has promoted for the 50+ years post WW2.

Never forget India was #1 in world GDP (for more than 1000 years) pre-
invasion.

~~~
testrun
Do not quite agree on this one. The USA, Canada, Australia, and South Korea
were also colonized, and they did quite well.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
>"Its a good point, if you overlook the fact that the British destroying the
Indian & Chinese economy"

I only mentioned Britain because I followed it by compounding China and India.

If we are only talking China specifically, it was invaded by a mixture of 8
nations simulataneously (multiple times), including British, Americans,
French, Germans, Russians and the Japanese in just the 19th century (see Opium
wars through Boxer Rebellion).

------
niceperson
This just means APPAMAwhatever aren't paying the government enough $$$

------
chewz
> “As a country, we have to all grow up and say that, you know, enough of
> this,” Vinit Goenka, a railways official who works on technology policy for
> India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, said at a conference last week.

So did India had already fixed it's railroads and now is taking on the
internet?

------
nilsocket
I also see Indian government recently requested British government for soft
reparations. i.e., to identify the fact that British have completely exploited
India in terms of their finance. They also said, when British ruled India,
they killed nearly millions of people on purpose and their exploitation of
Indian work-force.

This is also raising an awareness among some of Indian population.

They were in plan of rewriting their history books, about their world's first
University, astrology mathematics, Vedic sciences, medical sciences ... The
list goes on. Obviously India contributing more than 27% of GDP for more than
thousand years and there achievements in mathematics, Number system,
trigonometry,calculus, algebra and Invention of surgery...

There open-trade system, and being a free culture, they used to have places
for debate, and everybody can worship which ever God they want, if one doesn't
like any God, you can create one and pray.

There used to be a lot of competition for admissions to Indian universities
from all over the world.

And ofcourse yoga, mediation, home for Hinduism, Buddhism,...

They're Vedic knowledge was extraordinary.

~~~
int_19h
> They were in plan of rewriting their history books, about their world's
> first University, astrology mathematics, Vedic sciences, medical sciences
> ... The list goes on.

Indeed. For some more examples:

[https://www.altnews.in/bjp-science-ganeshas-plastic-
surgery-...](https://www.altnews.in/bjp-science-ganeshas-plastic-surgery-yoga-
can-cure-cancer/)

~~~
nilsocket
That seems to be to much, but what I have pointed out was mostly facts. Indeed
one can dig up the Greek ancient writings where they write, too much of gold
is being sent to India because of their fine textiles.

Let's talk of basic common sense, when people colombus discovered (if they
consider it that way), America he called the native people as red-Indians,
it's not that colombus was searching for America, but he indeed sailed to find
India.

