Telecom operators and civil society groups have clashed over the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) floating a possibility of “selective” app banning, such as switching off WhatsApp, in a strife-riddled area as an alternative to Internet shutdowns. The divergent views emerged in submissions to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that were published on Monday.
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The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) pushed for messaging services to be regulated under a licence, which would enable the Union government to order them to shut off access to, for instance, WhatsApp, when ordered to do so. Telcos once again pushed their controversial argument that messaging and calling apps like WhatsApp need to pay them for the cost incurred in carrying their data on networks.
But the selective app banning debate, which is being proffered as a less extreme solution to Internet shutdowns, has its critics. “We are … apprehensive of the approach of selective banning of OTT services, given its ad hoc, ambiguous, and impractical application, and the negative consequences it may have of user choice and freedom,” the Internet Freedom Foundation said.
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‘May not pass muster legally’
No response by WhatsApp or its parent company Meta was published on the TRAI website. But industry groups where the social media giant is a member expressed doubt that selective app banning would be effective. The Broadband India Forum, of which Meta is a member, said “consumers are likely to be more motivated to find workarounds to the imposition of selective bans on OTT services or websites” and that selective bans “may not pass muster” legally.
As a part of their efforts to regulate messaging apps, telcos have relied on both revenue leakage arguments (arguing that even though these apps don’t have spectrum rights, they are ‘perfect substitutes’) as well as on national security grounds — telcos are required to obey call tapping and interception orders, whereas messaging apps like WhatsApp only reveal metadata, encrypting the actual text of messages and data of calls to the extent that the companies themselves cannot see the content.
“These … service providers can provide a solution to disable their apps/services in a particular geography, as they are anyway providing location-based services and generally take permission to capture users’ location,” Reliance Jio argued in its submission.
“There should be no banning of any Internet-based services,” the advocacy group Internet Society said, taking a strong stand against blocking of content for any reason. “The Internet — and the services, apps, websites, and platforms deployed over it — should remain on and strong, no matter what.”