Did you know India Pulls Out Many VPNs From the App Store and Google Play Store After Government Intervention
Several popular VPN apps were removed from the Google Play Store and
Apple App Store in India. This includes the world-famous 1.1.1.1 from
Cloudflare. The news comes after intervention done by the country’s
government authorities.
As per instructions from the Ministry of
Home Affairs, authorities were left with no choice but to pull out the
VPN apps after getting direct orders, TechCrunch
shared after reviewing the document that also included a disclosure
from Google to Harvard University’s database Lumen. The latter is famed
for tracking all takedown requests carried out globally by the
government.
Among those impacted include Hide.me and PrivadoVPN.
The demand was cited to Apple by the country’s Cyber Crime Coordination
Center which also works with the Indian Home Ministry. They felt the
content made by developers went against the country’s law.
The strict requirements prompted major pushback from top industry leaders such as Surfshark, NordVPN, Proton VPN, and ExpressVPN who voiced their opinions on the issue. They felt major reservations with the new law and many even threatened to revove their services from the country.
Today, we only have three leading firms working to provide services to Indian clients. They include NordVPN, Surfshark, and ExpressVPN. But their marketing for apps has also come to a standstill in the nation.