Google Under Fire in US for Predatory Monopoly Practices

The US Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Google-Alphabet (Alphabet is Google’s parent company) for a range of anti-competitive practices using its monopoly power in the search market. This is the only major … Read moreGoogle Under Fire in US for Predatory Monopoly Practices

TikTok Ban and Trump’s Extortionist Policies

IN the United States of America, Trump administration has given a 90-day deadline to ByteDance, its Chinese owner, to sell its assets to a US company or shut shop. Microsoft, Oracle and a group including … Read moreTikTok Ban and Trump’s Extortionist Policies

Can BJP’s Politics and Facebook’s Business Thrive without Hate?

THE Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article – Facebook’s Hate-Speech Rules Collide With Indian Politics – on August 14, has blown the lid off Facebook’s unholy alliance with the BJP. In this article, WSJ details how … Read moreCan BJP’s Politics and Facebook’s Business Thrive without Hate?

New Data Protection Bill: From Protecting our Data to Creating a Surveillance State

THE government has come out with a Draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 which differs significantly from its earlier version drafted by Justice BN Sri Krishna in 2018. Justice Sri Krishna has called these changes … Read moreNew Data Protection Bill: From Protecting our Data to Creating a Surveillance State

Ministers Playing Hide and Seek in Parliament on Pegasus

THE two sets of questions in the Parliament to two different ministries on the Israeli software Pegasus being used to hack smartphones of Indian activists have drawn different replies.  It makes clear that the government … Read moreMinisters Playing Hide and Seek in Parliament on Pegasus

Global Capital, Digital Monopolies and New Forms of Enclosure

THE beginning of the digital monopoly age, the age in which the digital monopolies start emerging and the neoliberal economic model has been roughly coterminous. Both come of age in the 90s. While the neoliberal … Read moreGlobal Capital, Digital Monopolies and New Forms of Enclosure

Digital Monopoly Platforms, the Modi Regime and the Threat to our Democracy

Prabir Purkayastha ON April 5, 2019, a joint platform of five civil society organisations released an urgent appeal signed by over two hundred eminent persons including two former chief election commissioners – N Gopalaswami and … Read moreDigital Monopoly Platforms, the Modi Regime and the Threat to our Democracy

Tech for Democracy in a Brave New Digital World

WITH the elections in the offing, different groups – the Free Software Movement of India, Association for Democratic Reforms, Common Cause, etc – have raised a key issue: how to stop the Indian elections from … Read moreTech for Democracy in a Brave New Digital World

Threat to Democracy in the Age of Social or Anti-social Media

THE three Hindi heartland states – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan – have rejected the BJP in varying degrees in the elections to the state assemblies. These elections show that even with money power and … Read moreThreat to Democracy in the Age of Social or Anti-social Media