New Indian Cyberlaw Lets Government Block Web Access
Written by Fred J. AunNovember 3rd, 2009
We had a little fun discussing a recent Chicken Little-ish U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that discussed the potentially terrible effect a flu pandemic would have on the Web. Even if, as the GAO warned, such a pandemic slowed the Internet to a crawl--thanks to people being forced to stay home from school or work and spending their time surfing the Web (not in bed shivering and sneezing)--there's little the government could do about it.
But that's in the U.S. Things are different in India, where a new law gives the government the clout to actually block access to Web sites if doing so would help ensure public order. Whether an inability to shop online can be defined as a form of public disorder is questionable, but there's no doubt an Internet crippled by bandwidth-hogging flu sufferers could wreak havoc with E-Commerce and dent the economy.
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Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? 
-Christine
