Digital India bill to address adtech firms' disproportionate control over digital platforms: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The government, through the Digital India Bill, hopes to address the imbalance between content creation and its monetisation by advertisement technology (adtech) companies, minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said.

The proposed Digital India Act will replace the more than 20-year-old Information Technology Act, 2000.

Addressing the gathering at e4m-Digital News Publishers Association(DNPA) Digital Impact Awards 2023 on January 20, the minister said, "We hope to, in the Digital India Act, address this issue of the disproportionate control and the imbalance in the dynamics between content creation and monetisation requirements of content creators, and the power that ad tech companies and platforms hold today."

The minister was responding to comments by Australian MP Paul Fletcher, who also attended the event. Fletcher, who was the minister of communication when his country passed the News Media Bargaining code, talked about how the then government stood up to Google and Facebook who resisted sharing revenue with news publishers.

One of the issues with the way the internet had evolved was the power of digital advertising, Chandrasekhar said. Adtech platforms exerted disproportionate control over the monetisation and revenues of content creation, he added.

"That leaves the small guy at a disadvantage and is really not the right thing for a country like ours where we have potentially hundreds and thousands of creative content creators and many truth-driven content creators," he added.

Earlier in an interview to Moneycontrol, Chandrasekhar said India's tech-related policies would put an end to market distortions by Big Tech firms.

At the event, Chandrasekhar said in the last decade challenges to the openness of the internet had begun to show up in the form of domination by big platforms. There was now heightened awareness about user harm, need to focus on safety and trust on the internet and "accountability to the little guy”, he added.

The minister said the new digital bill was part of the government’s two-pronged approach to guide the country's digital economy. The first part was the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, whose draft was released for consultation last year.

"..The digital personal data protection bill, which essentially codifies the right to data protection of the individual citizen, but creates a predictable, easy, compliance and intensive framework for those who innovate on the internet, to also continue to do what they do, whilst respecting the data protection rights of the individual," Chandrasekhar said. The second would be the new digital bill.

The minister’s comments came on the day the consumer affairs ministry released endorsement guidelines for social media influencers, which included provisions of penalties.

The ministry said advertisements by influencers must contain truthful and honest representation and should not mislead consumers by exaggerating the accuracy, scientific, validity, or practical usefulness or capability of performance of the product. Influencers can be fined Rs 10 lakh, which can go up to Rs 50 lakh if the offence is repeated, the guidelines say.