Dear friends, The Central Government has on 11th April 2011, notified the new Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 prescribing various guiding principles to be observed by all intermediaries. The rules cast an obligation on the intermediaries to remove access to any content on receiving a complaint from an affected person that it falls under the category of a wide, vague list of “unlawful” content specified in the rules. This vague list includes content considered as 'blasphemous', 'libellous', 'grossly harmful', 'harassing', or 'disparaging'.
The new rules in the current form: - Lead to a clamp down on the freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Constitution of India by providing for a system of pre-censorship / self-censorship by non-state actors; - adversely affect the right to privacy of citizens by allowing Government agencies to access their information residing with the intermediaries; - will severely hamper the growth of internet penetration in India, and consequently lead to a slowdown of economic growth; - limit the growth of various IT related industries and services (in particular cyber cafes, search engines and bloggers). Please sign the petition at http://www.softwarefreedom.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97&Itemid=83to appeal to the Government to amend the rules at the earliest. ACT NOW - PROTECT OUR FREEDOM !!! Regards, Prasanth Sugathan Software Freedom Law Center _______________________________________________ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
