AMAZON, GOOGLE FACE TOUGH RULES IN INDIA’S E-COMMERCE DRAFT

India’s latest e-commerce policy draft includes steps that could help local start-ups and impose government oversight on how companies handle data. The Ministry of Commerce’s Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade has drafted the policy for at least two years to reduce the dominance of global tech giants like Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. Under these rules, an e-commerce regulator is to be appointed to ensure the industry is competitive with broad access to information resources.

The report states, “India’s roaring digital economy, with half a billion users and growing, is witnessing pitched battles in everything from online retail and content streaming to messaging and digital payments. Global corporations lead in each of these segments, while local start-ups have sought help from a sympathetic government that recently banned dozens of apps backed by Chinese technology giants.”