🥇If There’s One Story To Read Today
It’s getting too taxing for the online gaming industry
Last month, three of India’s biggest online gaming associations wrote to the Central Board of Direct Taxes. Why? Because amendments to gaming tax regimes announced in this year’s Union Budget are being implemented from different dates. These uneven timelines open up a pandora’s box of issues for a sector already worried by multiple proposals to change tax regimes.
For starters, there are practical concerns to implementing these amendments. Switching from one tax regime to another within the year could raise operational costs for companies—which might be difficult for growing platforms to bear. This could also lead to an exponential increase in user complaints. All the while, gaming platforms may also have to shoulder additional tax liabilities because of these changes too!
From what we can tell, these amendments may make compliance with tax laws even more complicated than it already is. Find out why, here.
🗓 Your Tech Policy Agenda
- Discussing Digital India: The IT Ministry is holding a public consultation on the upcoming Digital India Bill on March 9, 2023. Find more details here. The IT Minister is set to discuss the framework, architecture, and guiding principles of the Act at the event.
- Governing Global Internet: The first round of Open Consultations and Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group meeting for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2023 will be held from March 8-10, 2023. IGF is a global forum for discussions on public policy issues relating to the Internet. Find more details here and register here.
- Talking Ad-tech and more: ‘ad:tech’ is a two-day conference and expo, being held on March 15-16, focuses on the internet economy from a marketing and business perspective. Digital advertising and ad-tech will be a major focus in the sessions. Find details and register here
🚨Today’s Top Stories
PLATFORM REGULATION
Settling into compliance rhythm: It has been two years since the Indian government rolled out the controversial IT Rules, 2021 which made everyone unhappy but companies are now settling into a compliance rhythm even though the Supreme Court is yet to pronounce its verdict on the legal validity of these guidelines. [Read 🔒, 3 minutes]
The haunted privacy policy: In 2021, WhatsApp announced changes to its privacy policy, which continues to haunt the company until now because of how ill-framed and forceful the policy was. WhatsApp is now giving users a reason to move on by committing to be more transparent when announcing policy changes in the future and giving users more choice in accepting or rejecting them. That will settle the matter in the EU, but what happens in India remains to be seen. [Read 🔒, 3 minutes]
Trust issues, a red flag in the influencer sector: Trust is the key to building sustainable relationships of any kind, including the one between an influencer and their followers. With growing concerns about authenticity of online content and products, users are greatly relying upon reviews and opinions by their influencers on social media for making choices. The question is how can brands and influencers work in sync to maintain their users’ trust. The Advertising Standards Council of India has a few tips. [Read 🔒, 6 minutes]
🌏 Tech Policy from Around the World
China to Create New Top Regulator for Data Governance [Read] (Keith Zhai/ Wall Street Journal)
How a single engineer brought down Twitter on Monday [Read] (Casey Newton and Zoë Schiffer/Platformer)
Push to give Biden new powers to ban TikTok moves ahead in Congress [Read] (David Shepardson/Reuters)
Meta must face trial over AI trade secrets, judge says [Read] (Blake Brittain/Reuters)
Coinbase Tells User Missing $96,000 After Security Breach Is His Problem, Suit Claims [Read] (Joel Rosenblatt and Malathi Nayak/Bloomberg)
Now the Florida GOP wants political bloggers to register with the government [Read] (Adi Robertson/ The Verge)
Twitter insiders: We can’t protect users from trolling under Musk [Read] (Marianna Spring/ BBC)
Thousands scammed by AI voices mimicking loved ones in emergencies [Read] (Ashley Belanger/ Ars Technica)
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