Are Online Travel Companies In India Adopting Unfair Practices?

Are online travel agencies in India violating cyber law of India? Are online travel companies in India adopting unfair practices? These are few of the questions that are making round these days.

These doubts and questions are arising because of the nebulous condition of e-commerce law of India. The e-commerce laws in India are still evolving and e-commerce stakeholders in India are not aware of cyber law due diligence in India. Neither the online travel companies nor the online consumers are aware of the consequences of online transactions entered in India in an improper manner.

To further aggravate the position, Indian cyber law is in a poor state of condition. In fact, techno legal experts like Praveen Dalal, managing partner of ICT law firm Perry4Law, have openly suggested repealing of the information technology act, 2000 (IT Act 2000) as it is clearly violating civil liberties in cyberspace.

"Personally, I believe that Indian Cyber law is outdated and it needs urgent repeal," Praveen Dalal said. However, he has been suggesting reforms for the same for the last five years. Dalal also feels that the Indian government is indifferent towards this much needed requisite.

As a result, online travel companies and other e-commerce companies and websites are operating in India with great disregard to the cyber law of India. Further, at times their activities are also suspicious. For instance, many of you must have realised that while booking air or other tickets online, the price of tickets increases substantially suddenly within few seconds.

Numerous complaints have also been lodged in this regard with the online travel companies and agencies of India. The travel portals have sidelined the issue by citing the same as a “technical error”.

This episode has happened in addition to the controversial practice of selling “opaque charges” where the name of the airline is not disclosed till the ticked is booked. Many airlines of India have openly protested against this practice and have either withdrawn their business completely from online travel portals or have reduced it to the sub minimum limits.

There is an urgent need to formulate dedicated laws for online travel companies and agencies of India. Till then the customers have to bear the irregularities and unfair practices on the part of airlines and online travel companies and agencies operating in India. However, they can take sufficient legal actions against both airlines and online travel companies and agencies where the situation and circumstances warrant so.  

Legal Rights Objections Under ICANN's New GTLD Program

ICANN is in the process of allotment of new generic top level domain names. Many organisations have applied to ICANN to get the desired GTLD. However, not all applied GTLDs would be allotted to the applicants as there may be many legal issues of new GTLDs applications and registrations that may surface while scrutinising the applications.

For instance, legal rights objections under ICANN's new GTLD domain registration program would arise as many trademark, tradename and intellectual property rights (IPRs) owners would file the same. There is a good possibility that such disputes would arise and ICANN has already made necessary arrangements in this regard.

The independent objector and legal rights objections for ICANN’s new GTLDs are two such important conflict resolution initiatives suggested by ICANN. Even private players have established platforms that could be used for resolving the disputes arising out of new GTLDs applications and registrations.

Legal rights objection assistance for new GTLDs by Perry4Law has also been offered. If fact, a dedicated platform known as “online arbitration” has been launched by Perry4Law Organisation to resolve domain name, new GTLDs, cyber squatting and other similar disputes.

New GTLDs, ICANN and domain names disputes resolutions is essentially techno legal in nature. Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) is managing the exclusive techno legal online dispute resolution services in India and world wide. Perhaps, even ICANN can use the techno legal services of Perry4Law and PTLB for resolving its domain name disputes in general and new GTLDs disputes in particular.

Google Artificial And Unnatural Links Strategy

Google has been sending warning notifications to webmasters/owners of websites and blogs that are receiving back links from other websites in a manner that is not in compliance with Google’s webmaster Guidelines.

In the past many website owners have reported that Google has sent them warning notifications about artificial or unnatural links pointing towards their websites/blogs. This is not an ordinary and casual warning and its satisfactory and appropriate resolution is of utmost importance for website owners. Otherwise they may cease to enjoy the benefits of Google’s services especially search engine placements and other search placements.

Many of you may have wondered why your websites are performing poorly despite providing original, timely and genuine contents. This is because spam blogs are picking up your contents and are linking back to your websites and Google treats it as a negative act on your part as it is your website that is gaining PageRank and other ranks.

This exercise may also be a negative SEO technique adopted by your competitor to make your website and business suffer penalties through Google. There is no question of treating such activities lightly as it may affect your business interest in the long run.

Acting immediately against the culprits is the best option. The more you linger the worst would be the situation. Ultimately, a point would come where you have to convince Google to a great length to get back your websites in Google search results.

Either act on your own or hire the services of some good techno legal professionals in this regard if you have received one such notice from Google. If you need techno legal assistance in this regard, you may consult the ICT law firm Perry4Law in this regard. They have first hand and real life and almost real time experience in dealing with these types of cases.

NCTC: Reasons For Its Failures In India

The national counter terrorism centre (NCTC) of India is currently facing severe criticisms and oppositions from many quarters of the society. Whether it is civil liberty activists, political parties, research scholars, security analysts, etc all of them are slamming the NCTC project of India.

None can doubt that NCTC is a project that is of national importance. However, the way it is implemented is really troublesome. This is also the reason why state governments are vigorously opposing the very idea of NCTC. In fact as per the techno legal experts of India, NCTC in its present form is neither constitutional nor desirable.

According to Praveen Dalal, managing partner of New Delhi based ICT law firm Perry4Law and leading techno legal expert of Asia, National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) of India has been facing many ups and downs. This is despite the fact that National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) of India is required to meet the growing National Security Requirements of India.

So what are the problems that have plagued the establishment of NCTC in India? According to Praveen Dalal, Constitutional, Legal and Administrative reasons are behind the limited success of NCTC in India.

For instance, the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) of India, National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid) Project of India, Aadhar Project of India, Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS), etc are not governed by any Legal Framework and Parliamentary Oversight. Indian government is not willing to understand and accept that Intelligence Work is not an Excuse for Non Accountability, suggests Praveen Dalal.

Parliament of India must step in to rectify the national security shortcomings that are emerging due to lack of parliamentary oversight and legal frameworks. If Indian executive keeps on imposing projects and initiatives without complying with the constitutional requirement, it would be a sure recipe for disaster.

Privacy Law Firms In India Must Be Proactive

Indian privacy and data protection laws are complicated in nature as they are scattered among multiple legislations, rules and regulations. Further, information and communication technology (ICT) and outsourcing has added their own complexities to the same. Thus, privacy laws, lawyers and law firms in India are still maturing.

Not only we have very few privacy and data protection law firms in India but we have only a handful of cyber law firms in India. One area that has recently interested the legal community pertains to cyber security. Although cyber security as a legal field has started gaining attention of foreign lawyers and law firms yet cyber security law firms in India or cyber security lawyers in India are still missing.

Privacy and data protection has assumed a centre stage due to recent growth of ICT related industries, including e-commerce. Further, sensitive and personal information is also required to be maintained and preserved not only by the government but also private individuals and companies.

According to India’s leading techno legal ICT law firm Perry4Law and its techno legal segment named Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB), e-commerce regulations and laws in India require the e-commerce companies to maintain privacy and data protection and data security of the information supplied by their customers. Similarly, e-health laws and regulations in India require that sensitive personal information of patients must be kept intact, secure and private. The telemarketing laws of India also intend to prohibit spam communication to protect privacy of individuals. The cloud computing regulations in India must also carry stringent privacy protection safeguards.

We must also have well defined procedure and cell site data location laws in India. As we have no dedicated privacy laws, data protection laws, data security laws, anti telemarketing laws, anti spam laws, etc, cell phones monitoring in India is not legally sustainable.

The role of privacy law firms in India can be very productive. They must insist upon enactment of dedicated privacy laws, data protection laws and data security laws. However, since there are handfuls of privacy law firms in India this task would take some time before Indian government would pay heed to their suggestions.

Is Google Censoring Recent Video Conferencing Controversy Results?

Use of video conferencing in India is not new but its blocking is certainly new. The recent fiasco of Rajasthan government and Rajasthan police that did not allow the video conferencing of Salman Rushdie shows that India is not comfortable with technology uses for serious issues.

The recent episode has proved that video conferencing in India is a troubled technology and shows Indian struggle with information technology. We have no dedicated video conferencing laws and regulations in India. Similarly we have no dedicated video conferencing blocking laws in India as well. In the absence of a clear cut law, constitutional issues like speech and expression are at stake.

However, my interest in blocking of video conferencing in India is also associated with another crucial issue. It seems Google has been manipulating search and blog results pertaining to posts criticizing recent blocking of video conferencing in India. India wanted companies like Google and Facebook to censor users’ contents and this is exactly what seems to be happening in India.

Recently two posts titled video conferencing laws and regulations in India and video conferencing blocking laws in India, posted at PTLB Blog, appeared in both search results and blog search results. Now they do not appear anymore in both search results. Surprisingly, they are still available in both search results outside Indian cyberspace.

Google, Facebook, etc are facing a criminal trail for not removing objectionable contents. What is more surprising is the argument taken by Google India in Delhi High Court. Google India claimed that it is a subsidiary of Google Incorporation and has no control over contents available at latter’s platforms.

If this is the situation, who has removed the search results of the abovementioned two articles on video conferencing is an interesting question. Naturally, it can be only Google Incorporation that can remove such results as per Google India’s claim. However, since search results of the two posts are available outside India, it seems to be a job of Google India. May be Google India had requested Google Incorporation to remove the same or it did the same on its own.

It is high time to ascertain the true nature, role, powers and functions of Google India as posts are frequently disappearing from India based search results. I hope Delhi High Court would take note of this fact and the averments made in this article while deciding the case of Google India and Google Incorporation.

Update: It seems Google Incorporation (California, US) has approved the posts. These posts have resurfaced. Thanks to Google US for doing the needful. So it seems Google US is not censoring recent video conferencing controversy results in India.

LPO And KPO In India Is Changing

Legal process outsourcing (LPO) and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) are two of the most important segments of outsourcing industry. Legal process outsourcing usually covers areas like contract drafting and vetting, legal research, para legal work, arguments drafting, legal due diligence services, etc. Knowledge process outsourcing, on the other hand, takes care of highly specilaised aspects of the outsourcing industry.

Legal process outsourcing (LPO) in India is not a new phenomenon. Even many firms and companies are providing knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services in India. So basically LPO and KPO in India is well established and world renowned. LPO and KPO firms and companies in India are also world renowned and they provide valuable services to world at large.

However, techno legal LPO and KPO in India is still in its infancy stage. For instance, very few LPO and KPO in India are providing e-discovery services in India. Similarly, very few LPO providers in India are providing that are providing technology related legal due diligence services in India. Further, when it comes to electronic legal due diligence services in India, there seems to be no LPO and KPO services provider except Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB).

The cyber law trends in India 2012 by Perry4Law and PTLB have predicted that techno legal issues like cyber law due diligence, corporate laws due diligence, social media due diligence, e-discovery, etc would assume more importance in the year 2012. Further, citizen to government (C2G) LPO and KPO services would also rise in the year 2012.

LPO and KPO is a competitive and dynamic field and only the most competent would survive in the long run. With increasing competition from Asian countries, Indian LPO and KPO providers must be more innovative and adapt as per the technological requirements.