Mitron app founders: We made customizations and assure personal information is safe on our servers (Express photo: Sneha Saha)
After keeping silent for well over a week, Mitron app founders Shivank Agarwal and Anish Khandelwal told indianexpress.com that their app came back on Google Play store after they complied with the request for the proper documentation needed as a UGC platform. Mitron, touted as the Indian alternative to TikTok, was removed from the Google Play store last week along with the Remove China Apps for violation of Google’s privacy policy.
Mitron has been facing backlash even before Google removed the app from Play store after a Pakistan coding company, Qboxus, claimed Agarwal bought the source code of Tictic from them for $34 (roughly around Rs 2,500) and rebranded it as Mitron without making any customisations to the code. However, the duo countered this claim and said they bought the initial prototyping code from Envato marketplace, an Australian company, and not Qboxus.
The duo said, “Envato is a marketplace where users can purchase licensed code. We also purchased a template from this marketplace and we are the legal owners of the codebase of Mitron. Our focus was on the suitability of the initial template we purchased and the origin of the developer was neither displayed nor relevant.”
The Mitron founders claimed they had completely revamped the initial code to make it suitable for scalability and security needs. “You cannot cater to the daily traffic of 2 million users if we continued to use the product as it is,” they added.
Calling theirs a complete “Make In India product”, the founders said the entire production-ready code has been developed by the dedicated team in Bengaluru.
The developers assured that all user data is stored in AWS servers in Mumbai. “Our thought process has always been Indian consumers should be served by Indian platforms and Indian data should always be secured on Indian servers,” Agarwal and Khandelwal said.
Mitron app has been downloaded by millions of users in a few weeks, but there were concerns around data security. The founders said all user data is all safe and secure and stored in servers within India. “We have made a hell lot of customizations and we assure that personal information is safe on our servers,” they said. Mitron is currently available only on Google Play store but the will soon be up for download on Apple App store, the company has confirmed.
In the coming days, team Mitron is planning to bring several changes in the user interface — which currently looks very similar to TikTok — with the aim to offer a smoother experience to users.
Talking about the road ahead, Mitron founders said, “We want to create a platform for every Indian where they can showcase true India. Going vernacular will only be the start to this journey.”
Agarwal and Khandelwal highlighted that the content on Mitron app will serve both entertainment and educational quotient and the company plans to collaborate with the government as well as private bodies active in these areas. “We want to collaborate with Government with specific points such as — skill development, education, and educating farmers with better Farming techniques,” they said.