The government on Friday made it mandatory for social media influencers to disclose their "material" interest in endorsing products and services and violations can attract strict legal action, including ban on endorsements. The regulations are part of continuing efforts to curb misleading advertisements as well protect the interests of consumers amid the expanding social influencer market which is projected to be worth around Rs 2,800 crore by 2025. The new guidelines named 'Endorsement Know Hows -- for celebrities, influencers and virtual media influencers (Avatar or computer generated character) on social media platforms' has been issued by the Department of Consumers Affairs.
Under the rules, media companies or their associations have to form self-regulatory bodies which would be headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court or high courts or an eminent person.
In a bid to provide a level playing field, the government has decided not to levy 2 per cent digital service tax if goods and services are sold through Indian arm of foreign e-commerce players.
Believe it or not, the regulator is even stretching its arm to identify stressed borrowers and gauge the 'distance to default' as a measure of a particular bank's fragility, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Monday set May 3 as the deadline for subscribers to opt for a higher pension. The Supreme Court on November 4 allowed another change for employees who were existing EPS members as on September 1, 2014, to contribute up to 8.33 per cent of their actual salaries - as against 8.33 per cent of pensionable salary capped at Rs 15,000 a month - towards pension. The apex court gave a four-month window to enable opting for higher pensions.
Meta-owned Facebook 'actioned' about 21.6 million content pieces across 13 violation categories in India during March, according to a monthly report by the social media giant.
Google is committed to complying with local laws and engages constructively with governments as they scrutinise and adopt regulatory frameworks to keep pace with the fast evolving technology landscape, its CEO Sundar Pichai said on Thursday.
'There were two options before the government -- create a complex, cumbersome law, which will cause a tremendous amount of compliance challenges for startups or say let's go back and do a clean slate, where we do a framework of laws and policies'
The highest number of URLs actioned pertained to Abuse/Harassment and IP-related Infringement (46 each), followed by Privacy Infringement (35), Impersonation (16) and Defamation (15). URLs actioned under Misinformation/Synthetic and Manipulated Media category stood at 7, and Sensitive Adult Content and Hateful Conduct (one each).
The Indian IT industry will stage a "strong recovery" in 2021-22 with a revenue growth of up to 11 per cent, ratings agency Crisil said on Wednesday. The recovery will be led by increasing outsourcing and accelerating digital transformation services mainly in sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, retail and manufacturing, it said. As per Nasscom, the IT services industry grew 2.7 per cent to $99 billion in 2020-21.
In the new Parliament House, with a soft launch this Winter Session, paper is expected to disappear. For the guidance of ministers, secretaries can scribble notes on linked pads even from their offices to respond to queries from members.
'Marginal rates will definitely affect the consumer's decision in entering a new transaction, but in reality, they don't affect much because banks/financial institutions have come up with step-up EMIs: 50% of home loans which exceed 15 years in India are prepaid, within 7-8 years.' 'This doesn't happen anywhere in the world.'
GST officers can now launch prosecution against offenders in cases where the amount of evasion or misuse of input tax credit is more than Rs 5 crore, the finance ministry has said. However, this monetary threshold will not be applicable in the case of habitual evaders or in cases where arrests have been made at the time of investigation. "One of the important considerations for deciding whether prosecution should be launched is the availability of adequate evidence," the GST investigation wing under the finance ministry said, while issuing instructions for launching prosecution.
Twitter received 94 grievances and 'actioned' 133 URLs between May 26 and June 25, the microblogging platform said in its maiden monthly compliance report as mandated by the IT rules.
Modi said the young and aspirational India understood the need for political stability to achieve faster development and had ended three decades of instability by mere touch of a button.
The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) Thursday urged the government to 'exempt and exclude' the traditional television news media and its extended presence on the digital news platforms from the ambit of the IT Rules 2021, saying it is already 'sufficiently regulated' by various statutes, laws, guidelines, codes and regulations.
The content 'actioned' belonged to categories including bullying and harassment, violent and graphic content, adult nudity and sexual activity, child endangerment, dangerous organisations and individuals, and spam, among others.
The comments assume significance as social media companies are facing the deadline of May 25 to comply with the new guidelines for digital platforms.
The telecom ministry will set up an intelligence unit and a consumer protection system as part of continuing efforts to tackle the menace of pesky calls as well as to take strict action against financial frauds perpetrated using telecom resources.
Twitter said it will continue to be strictly guided by principles of transparency, a commitment to empowering every voice on the service, and protecting freedom of expression and privacy under the rule of law.
Google received 31,497 complaints from users and removed 94,173 pieces of content based on those complaints in December, the tech giant said in its monthly transparency report.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) has slapped a penalty of Rs 2,000 crore on Vodafone Idea and Rs 1,050 crore on Bharti Airtel based on sector regulator Trai's recommendation five years ago, according to sources. The DoT has given three weeks time to the telecom operators to pay the penalty, a source said while sharing the content of the demand notice served to the companies on Thursday. When contacted Bharti Airtel spokesperson said, "We are deeply disappointed with the arbitrary and unfair demand based on Trai recommendations of 2016 relating to provisions of point of interconnect to a new operator.
"WhatsApp is an industry leader in preventing abuse, among end-to-end encrypted messaging services. Over the years, we have consistently invested in Artificial Intelligence and other state of the art technology, data scientists and experts, and in processes, in order to keep our users safe on our platform," a WhatsApp spokesperson said.
The two central premier investigative agencies - Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate - have asked their officials to focus more on digital evidence, e-forums and social media to crack down on offenders. These are a crucial part of prosecution amid the second wave of the pandemic. The Income Tax Department is going full throttle on data analytics to issue notices in time-bound cases. Further, sleuths have been given electronic devices including laptops with secure connections, which keep data encrypted and inaccessible.
"Actioned" content refers to the number of pieces of content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) where action has been taken for violation of standards. Taking action could include removing a piece of content from Facebook or Instagram or covering photos or videos that may be disturbing to some audiences with a warning.
Google received 26,087 complaints from users and removed 61,114 pieces of content based on those complaints in November, the tech giant said in its monthly transparency report.
To set up a future-ready administration geared towards the target of $2 trillion exports by 2030, the Department of Commerce has decided to set up a dedicated trade promotion body to drive overall promotion strategy, export targets, and execution as part of a restructuring exercise. The trade promotion body will formulate and drive overall trade promotion strategy; create and drive India's branding across focus markets and sectors; drive coordinated action across missions, states and export promotion councils; strategic initiatives, including advisory and buyer-seller meet; and develop digital platforms for exporters and buyers. Based on a 14-volume 'restructuring dossier' by the Boston Consulting Group, the commerce department has already implemented some of the recommendations.
The faceless authority has suggested a host of changes in the assessment process following conflicts and practical difficulties raised by taxpayers since the new regime was introduced. On August 3, the National Faceless Assessment Centre issued a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) to address several anomalies in the regime. The faceless centre, constituted by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, is the nodal authority and works as an interface for the faceless regime.
He said social media companies are free to do business in India but they have to be accountable to the Indian Constitution and laws.
The CMS allows e-adjudication of certain lapses and paying penalties online, doing away with the need to visit an MCA office or go through a legal process.
In addition to reports from users, Google also removed 3,84,509 pieces of content in October as a result of automated detection.
The Delhi high court Friday asked Twitter to remove certain objectionable material relating to Hindu Goddess from its platform, observing that the social media giant shall respect sentiments of general public as it was doing business for them.
The proposed e-commerce rule book issued recently by the ministry of consumer affairs does not mention foreign companies or foreign direct investment (FDI) at any place, unlike most other government guidelines for the sector so far. That is a heartening development since the latest proposals could be fine-tuned as e-commerce policy.
In June, Google received 36,265 complaints - the highest till now - from individual users located in India via designated mechanisms. It removed 83,613 pieces of content as a result of user complaints in the said month.
India conceding ground to bring only top 100 digital companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix into the global taxation pact may have revenue implications. This will mean that New Delhi will have to withdraw the contentious 2 per cent equalisation levy on e-commerce operators by 2023. This may have revenue implications for India, experts pointed out, as the equalisation levy has a much lower annual revenue threshold of Rs 2 crore (euro 0.2 million) as against euro 20 billion agreed by 130 countries at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). India, along with other developing countries, was pitching for at least euro 1 billion threshold to cover at least 5,000 global entities. India collected Rs 2,057 crore from the equalisation levy in 2020-21, an 85 per cent growth over Rs 1,136 crore in the previous fiscal.
The government on Saturday issued a notice to Twitter giving it one last chance to 'immediately' comply with the new IT rules and warned that failure to adhere to the norms will lead to the platform losing exemption from liability under the IT Act.
Apart from making your purchases on these platforms expensive, it will also mean sellers will have to face the brunt of reduced cash flows amid already low margins for some. Experts said the proposal, which will take effect on April 1, 2020, and will be inserted as a new section in the Income Tax Act, is expected to affect the working capital of e-commerce companies and reduce cash flows for e-sellers.
Social media needs to be made more accountable and stricter rules in this regard could be brought in if there is political consensus on the matter, Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in Rajya Sabha on Friday.
Justice Rekha Palli noted that while the rules mandated appointment of a key managerial person or a senior employee as CCO, Twitter disclosed in its affidavit that it had appointed a 'contingent worker' through a third party contractor.
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