Indian District Court restrains Google from sharing a users Gmail password

In an interesting twist of events, Indian district court (Vishakapatnam) has restrained Google from complying with a subpoena issued by the Superior Court of California, which ordered Google to share the password of the Gmail account belonging to an Indian citizen residing in Vishakhapatnam.

As per this blog:

“The Indian citizen, Mr. Kopisetty Sreeramulu, represented by M/s Badrinath & Madanmohan, informed the District Court that he had received an email, on 14th March, 2012, from google-legal-support@google.com informing him that they would share the information in his gmail.com account, in pursuance to a subpoena from the Superior Court of California unless he could produce an order quashing the subpoena. Mr. Sreeramulu, a freelance IT professional, who provides services to U.S. based companies, does not appear to be a party to the litigation before the Superior Court of California. The litigation before the California court pertains to a dispute between two other parties and it appears that Mr. Sreeramulu, or rather his gmail.com account, was in possession of certain documents or information which was vital to the litigation before the California court. Discovery of evidence under American laws is quite strict and applicable against even third parties who may possess evidence vital to litigation between other parties. “
(link to warrant of summons).

Interesting that the American court has directly asked Google to share the plaintiff’s password and did not channel it through the Indian government. In such cases, where there is no geographical ownership of content (and user id/password/server etc), is Google right in sharing Gmail password?

OR

Is Indian government right in asking companies like Google, Yahoo etc to move their servers to India (and Indian user data to servers in India), in order to manage such cases effectively?

As per Google’s T&C:

The laws of California, U.S.A., excluding California’s conflict of laws rules, will apply to any disputes arising out of or relating to these terms or the Services. All claims arising out of or relating to these terms or the Services will be litigated exclusively in the federal or state courts of Santa Clara County, California, USA, and you and Google consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

So, can an Indian court challenge this?

Recommended Read: Facebook India says its not responsible for user generated content on the site, Facebook.com | Google’s First Implementation of Country Specific Censorship : Blogspot Redirected to Blogspot.in in India

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Weixin Got Updated: Named WeChat, Added Facebook Connect, 7 Languages and Path-like Feature

Tencent has just released its new version of Weixin, the mobile group chatting service with over 100millions users.

We have reported Weixin’s ambition on international market, so not a big surprise, we see

1. Weixin officially has an English name, WeChat;

2. Weixin now supports 7 language including Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesia, Portuguese, Traditional Chinese and English;

3. WeChat’s official site is also launched, http://www.wechatapp.com and it even gets an Facebook Page;

4. International users can now login WeChat with its Facebook account.

Feature-wise, WeChat added one called Circle, which allows users to share photos with a group of friends. I would say Circle is just like Path, but with a bad UI.

If you have it downloaded, my id is: ganglu.

Related posts:

1. Rumor, Tencent Wants Its Weixin To Rock Global Market
2. Breaking, Pony Ma Confirms that Tencent’s Weixin Has Reached 100 Million Users
3. [Exclusive] Allen Zhang, VP of Tencent Talks About the Future of Weixin

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Entrepreneurs: Here is the billion dollar reason to smile when being called ‘stupid’ and ‘lame’

“This will never work”

“This is an awful stupid idea”

“You guys are lame. You know nothing about the industry”

Every entrepreneur goes through this and while you have an option to get sucked in to criticism/cynicism (and give in), the other option is to just go big bang and build something awesome.

Take a look at what Google autocomplete recommends for ‘Instagram’ query:

Instagram is Stupid and Lame, Yeah baby!

For the uninitiated, Google autocomplete predicts and displays search queries based on other users’ search activities – so essentially, this is what the world was thinking about Instagram, till they hit the billion dollar jackpot. Maybe,a fraction of them even shared the ‘stupid’ and ‘lame’ opinion with the founders, on-their-face!

Oh well, being stupid and lame is the only way to survive this game and if you haven’t yet started enjoying being called ‘stupid’ and ‘lame’ (and other variations of such love expressions), you are just not doing enough.

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From Pluggd.in forum: How to design PR Campaign for your startup

[Editorial notes: Pluggd.in forum is a community of entrepreneurs, geeks and importantly, community that is willing to help each in the entrepreneurial journey. In fact, couple of days back, we introduced “Connect me to” section, enabling connection to customers/partners/investors through a trusted channel. And the result has been phenomenal. We continue to make Pluggd.in forum as the place to get feedback/insights from the startup community and look forward to great discussions ahead.]

Here are a few interesting discussions started on Pluggd.in forum.

How to design PR Campaign for your startup

I’m looking for any insights, thoughts, resources & useful material that could help our team & other startups in India in building a good PR campaign. Alongside, I’ll be contributing our experience and learning’s back here for others to read. If we’re able to put together a great set of resources, then I’ll help author a blog post that compiles the resources, experiences & insights that go into executing such an activity in India.
Here’s a summarized list of what could be useful to us and other startups in the same spot:
1. What makes a great PR campaign? Examples of great press releases (preferably in the Indian context)
2. A list of important blogs, bloggers, startup communities & publishers in India with the respective contact personnel (email, mobile, twitter handle) that you should push out your product’s information to.
3. What are the general preferences of the above publishers? Do they prefer to be contacted via email? phone? twitter? email followed by a phone call?
4. How should you be following up with those you communicated the product release information to?
5. How do I know when to stop wasting my time on someone and start communicating with the next person on my list?

–

Can Indian publisher sell Android Paid Apps as of today?

It is possible that those Indian publishers have an entity based in U.S. or U.K. and a bank account to link with Google Checkout Merchant account. Apart from this I don’t see a way to sell Android apps in Android Market.

–

How Do i Send a MERGER request?

The first question is: Why would i want to merge with a start-up.?
Answer: Their team members have all the skills that i totally lack. Previously i hired a person to do that part for me but that person ran away (For some unknown reason). So, i felt it would be better if i can get them on my team.
So, please let me know a few polite ideas of how do i merge with them. No issues of Cash as my company is investor backed now. Adding those team members will definitely add value to my company.

–

Using SMSC gateways with a test account

Need to send some messages to port1 of a phone through a script (through an SMS gateway/other). Any leads/pointers are welcome.

-

Political Parties/Elections

Any idea what software our political parties use in general? What do they use for analyzing election results, demographic data etc?

–

How do i meet the co-founder of my future startup ?
I am starting with my idea and have everything ready idea-wise and plan-wise. I am searching for a partner/co-founder who will share the same enthusiasm and interest i have towards the idea, but haven’t met one lately !
What should be my next move ?
Some more details: I am a tech guy but I cannot kick start on the idea alone. So I have thought of getting freelancers to get the modules done and even probably persuade them to join me on my journey

–

Open Questions:

World cities and their localities database

Need suggestions with Business card Design

Good reads:

• Sort your Gmail Messages by Size using Google Docs
• High Performance Touch Screen from Microsoft
• How to deal with critics
• List: Startup communities N sites: for entrepreneurs enthusiasts cofounders N techies: Hindian only
• Choosing Between Making Money and Doing What You Love!

——-

[Participate in the forum/ connect with your Facebook/Google account and you are all set to roll.]

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TRAI makes per second tariff plan mandatory

TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has made it mandatory for telecom operators to offer per second billing.

“After consideration of all facts including the feedback from the consultation process, the Authority has decided not to interfere with the currently prevailing ceiling of 25 tariff plans that can be offered by a Service Provider at any given point of time.  However, at the same time the Authority feels that there has to be  at least  one tariff plan each for both post-paid and pre-paid subscribers with uniform pulse rate i.e. per second pulse,  across all service providers so as to enable the subscribers to compare the tariffs offered by different service providers.

In order to ensure that  per second billing remains an assured alternative option for all subscribers, it has been decided to mandate that all service providers shall offer  at least one pre-paid and one post-paid tariff plan with the pulse rate of one second for local and national long distance calls.    The service providers will be at liberty to offer alternative tariff plans with any pulse rate within the overall ceiling of 25 tariff plans.”

Even for premium rate services (like voting for contests), TRAI has mandated that the tariff can maximum be Four times of the applicable local  call/SMS  charges in the Tariff  plan  opted by the subscriber, as ceiling.

“For the purpose of ceiling tariff specified in this Order, the higher tariff for Local calls/SMS  applicable in the plan  would be taken into account in situations where more than one rate is  available.    Similarly the free or discounted call/SMS charge, if any, provided for specific duration through Special Tariff Vouchers, shall not be reckoned for the purpose of the specified ceiling as these are not the rates applicable in the Tariff plan. Since the rates indicated are by way of ceiling, SPs are at liberty to fix any rate less than four times of Local call/SMS tariff. “

Now that TRAI is dictating the pricing model for operators, is there a room to innovate? OR will it pave the way for new complex tariff plans?

- Download TRAI amendment report

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Rakuten Retreats China Market Due to Ferocious Competition

How tough is the competition in China e-commerce market? Just ask Rakuten. The Japanese e-commerce giant announced yesterday to close down China business Rakuten.cn with Baidu, a local search market dominator, a move also highlighting Baidu’s successive failure in stepping up its e-commerce effort following the shut-down of Youa Baidu’s approach to C2C in last May.

Rakuten.cn, or Lekutian in Mandarin, will be discontinued on April 27, according to the company’s announcement. Though Rakuten claimed that “following careful deliberation, both and Rakuten and Baidu determined that closing lekutian was in the best interest of all shareholders”, Baidu seems to be caught by surprise by the announcement, claiming the decision was made by the board of Rakuten. The two are now “hammering out the details on what to do following the decision.”

Rakuten ascribed the retreat to “Lekutian’s not-in-line-with-expectations performance in the face of intensified competition in the Chinese e-commerce industry”.

Baidu and Rakuten invested a combined US$ 50 million to set up Rakuten.cn, a B2B2C effort, in China in early 2010 to tap into the thriving yet competitive market. Rakuten owns 51% of the JV while Baidu owns 49%.

Rakuten said the Japanese company will continue to evaluate and explore opportunities in China e-commerce territory.

 

Related posts:

1. Online Shopping Site YoBrand Discontinued Service
2. VANCL Delayed IPO Due to Investor Disagreements
3. DisruptBJ Winner OrderWithMe Raises $3M in Series A

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