Now Google, Skype under fire in India
NEW DELHI — After BlackBerry won a reprieve, Google and Skype stepped into the firing line Tuesday as India's security agencies widened their crackdown on online communications firms. — India's BlackBerry users heaved a sigh of relief late Monday …
Context & Ripple Effects
Monday brought relief for India's BlackBerry users when Research In Motion won a reprieve from the security establishment's demand for access to its services — but the pause lasted one news cycle. On Tuesday, security agencies widened the same crackdown to Google and Skype, confirming that RIM was the first name on a list, not the whole of it.
With no settlement yet visible for any of the three firms, the episode reads as a sequential negotiation: each provider of internet communications in India is being pressed, one at a time, toward some form of lawful-intercept capability.
First-order effects
- Google and Skype now face direct pressure from Indian security agencies to provide interception access to their services, the same demand that triggered the standoff with RIM.
Second-order effects
- Every other encrypted or closed communications platform operating in India has reason to expect it is next in line, forcing them to weigh compliance architecture against market access.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, global communications platforms will increasingly negotiate lawful-access arrangements market by market rather than holding a single global privacy posture.
The trend: Governments are moving from blocking rhetoric to negotiated lawful-access demands aimed at individual foreign communications platforms, one company at a time.