NFTs are digital tokens that represent ownership in an underlying asset. At present they are a means by which to monetise digital art but eventually they will become the digital bridge that various commercial applications need for monetisation.

Issues of privacy and competition often overlap and we need a coordinated approach between regulators. That works in the US and EU where both the privacy and the competition regulators are active. In India, where we are yet to establish a privacy regulator, the competition commission will step in and regulate privacy aspects of data businesses from a competition perspective. There is a risk that privacy will be decided from a competition perspective. We need a data protection authority asap.

When measures being put in place to prevent third-party cookies from tracking individuals across the internet, companies that relied on these cookies to deliver personalised services had to find workarounds. Privacy activists are concerned that all this does is concentrate power in the hands of fewer gatekeepers. We can use this opportunity to move away from advertising as the business model for the internet and explore the subscription model.

The new map guidelines issued by the government has liberalised the map making in the country by doing away with the requirement for prior approvals and security clearances, relying instead on companies to self-certify their compliance. It has legalised the export of maps up to 1 meter resolution and have permitted Indian companies to use drones, street view and LiDAR technologies to create maps of higher resolution.

Bitcoin should not be treated as a currency. But at the same time it should not be banned. Cryptocurrencies are permissionless systems that operate without intermediaries. As a result central banks cannot implement macro-economic measures in the event of a financial crisis. However, they are programable and can be incorporated into smart contracts offering a number of opportunities for digital financial inclusion. CBDCs are the best of both worlds combining the programability of bitcoin with the stability of fiat currency.

Nowhere in the world have age verification obligations been imposed on online services like in India’s data protection law. Requiring users to prove their identity before the link they have clicked on can open will break the internet. Requiring children to get parental consent is not necessarily a good thing as parents often have a lesser understanding of privacy risk than their children who are digital natives. Instead we should hold platforms accountable for harms caused to children.

The Indian Intermediary Guidelines require messaging services to be able to identify the first originator of information. For those services that are end-to-end encrypted complying with this obligation will mean that they can no longer guarantee the anonymity of the parties. By asking message originators to be identified, it requires every single message to be tracked. In trying to identify a few criminals, it makes criminals of us all.

Australia’s media bargaining law that requires digital platforms to share revenues with Australian news companies only allows companies that deal in core news to enter into these revenue-share agreements. This excludes smaller publications and those that provide non-news content. Digital platforms decoupled content from distribution allowing small content providers to reach larger audiences. The Australian legislation will reverse this trend by supporting big new at the cost of independent content providers.

The Competition Commission of India has argued that since privacy is a non-price factor of competition, the competition regulator can regulate it. Privacy is a specialised area that should not be entrusted to a regulator that brings a purely economic lens its regulation.

Regulation can never keep up with technology. What we need to do is develop principles-based regulation and allow regulators discretion in its implementation through effective post-facto enforcement. We should presume that regulatory actions have been taken in good faith unless proven otherwise and build transparency into our systems to ensure that regulators do not exceed their authority. Regulators should list all applicable regulations on their website and not attempt to enforce anything outside those regulations.