Edited excerpts from an interview with The Indian Express executive director Anant Goenka:
Is it fair that the likes of Google decide advertising rates even though they only curate ‘content’ from other publishers?
Fair or not fair isn’t the question. Google is a reality and most of Silicon Valley has learned and recognised it isn’t in their interest to kill original content creators. We have to work together to build a sustainable digital economy.
There are anti-competition cases against Google in India and you have said they are being ‘dictatorial’ in a sense....
They should try to take publishers on board. Facebook generally engages in conversation, but Google has in the past acted more unilaterally in terms of decisions concerning the industry.
With a chapter titled ‘Data Localisation’ in the Srikrishna Committee White paper on data protection, do you think it is necessary for a government to impose jurisdiction on digital players?
Governments or industry bodies in India need to be more active in the governance of the internet. Our participation in iCANN for example has been pitiful. As a country that will soon emerge as the largest consumer of the internet as a medium, we should have more of a say in how the medium grows, if not internationally, at least domestically.
It could be argued that the internet was supposed to be a free-flowing information platform. Would the powers that be have more control over the internet?
The medium has the potential to be a democratic platform, but the truth is the digital world today can only be travelled on the back of five very large for-profit Silicon Valley-based organisations.
