Your Privacy, Their Rules: India’s War on VPNs
In a bold move to "safeguard" the wallet PLATFORM' target='_blank' title='digital-Latest Updates, Photos, Videos are a click away, CLICK NOW">digital realm, the indian Ministry of home Affairs has swung its regulatory hammer, forcing over half-a-dozen VPN apps—including the crowd-favorite Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1—out of the apple App Store and google Play Store. The reason? Oh, just a minor matter of “contravening indian law,” as dictated by the indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C).
Apparently, Hide.me and PrivadoVPN, along with a few other apps that dared to prioritize user privacy, were shown the door. But don’t worry—Apple and google were simply following “demands” to ensure their compliance badges stayed polished.
This enforcement action comes as india flexes its muscle with its 2022 VPN regulations, which thoughtfully ask providers to keep a five-year diary of users’ names, addresses, IPs, and transaction histories. Nothing screams “secure your privacy” like requiring detailed personal records to sit pretty in a server, just waiting for a leak—or worse.
Unsurprisingly, the VPN world didn’t roll out the red carpet for these new rules. industry giants like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, SurfShark, and ProtonVPN had some interesting thoughts about storing user data in what might as well be a vault made of cardboard. Some brands swiftly packed their servers and took a wallet PLATFORM' target='_blank' title='digital-Latest Updates, Photos, Videos are a click away, CLICK NOW">digital flight out of india, leaving only their footprints (and a lot of confused customers) behind.
Meanwhile, NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and SurfShark have gone stealth mode—offering services to their indian users while staying as far away from indian marketing as possible. Who needs the headache, right?
Of course, neither the Ministry of home Affairs, apple, google, nor Cloudflare could muster a comment on this extraordinary privacy-tightening effort. Silence is golden, after all.
So, dear citizens, fret not! Your government has got this under control. In the name of "security," they’ve not only pruned away those pesky privacy tools but also paved the way for a bright and transparent future where your every move is neatly logged and cataloged. Who needs privacy when you have regulation?