The Center banned 59 Chinese-linked apps on June 29, including TikTok, Shein, UC Browser and BeautyPlus, saying they were harmful to the country’s sovereignty, integrity and security. After last month ‘s ban on TikTok and 59 other Chinese devices, the government has produced a new list of apps to investigate whether they pose any danger to national security or the privacy of individuals. This time, 275 Chinese phones, including PubG, Zili, Resso, AliExpress, and ULike, have been kept on the radar. Included on the list are apps from other Chinese Internet and Tech majors such as Meitu, LBE Tech, etc. While a subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole created PubG game for smartphones, it is also sponsored by China’s most valuable internet giant Tencent. Zili is owned by Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, Xiaomi, Resso and ULike are owend by ByteDance and AliExpress.
India is the largest market of PubG
PubG has produced about 17.5 crore installations to date, according to estimates from device intelligence firm Sensor Tower. PubG, is a smartphone game sensation that millions of subscribers alone in India, millions more in the world, mostly teenagers and children. The application is a shooting game based in a battle-royale format.
AliExpress is a China-based online shopping company, operated by the Alibaba Group. Launched in 2010, it consists of small businesses in China and other locations, such as Singapore, that offer products to online buyers from around the world. It contrasted eBay as sellers are independent and use the site to deliver goods to buyers over 300 million unique users in India from Chinese internet companies.
According to the government sources, these apps were red-flagged for security reasons, while others were classified for data sharing violations and privacy concerns. Additionally, the government is examining the alleged flow of data from these apps to China that poses a threat to the sovereignty and integrity of India. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has sent 77 questions to the 59 Banned-Chinese apps. The Centre has asked questions like whether they censored content, worked on behalf of foreign governments or lobbied influencers, among others. The ministry has also given these companies three weeks to respond, i.e, first week of August.
The ban was enforced under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act read with the related provisions of the 2009 Rules of Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Public Blocking of Access to Data), it said. The govt also cited concerns about the transfer of data on Indian users abroad without authorization.
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