India law may require hosted email providers to use .in.
An amendment to information technology laws in India may require hosted email providers to use the .in country code domain name and use local servers. This would make their data subject to Indian law.
Apparently this stems from the Mumbai terrorist attacks, after which the government of India had difficulty getting network information from the terrorists’ Blackberries. If the information is housed outside the country, it is difficult for the government to obtain it.
As a result, people in India using Gmail might be forced to use the email address @gmail.in.
This move highlights a couple issues with country code top level domain names.
First, they could become more popular if countries mandate their usage by service providers.
Second, ccTLD registrants need to understand that their usage of country code domains is highly restrictive. Given the lack of proper controls in arbitration proceedings for .in, I’d be very concerned.
This is restricting mail providers like Google (gmail) and Microsoft (hotmail) as they provide services in India but don’t host servers in india and don’t necessarily use the .IN extension.
I’m all for less regulation but you have to understand that the phrase “doing business in India” is that catch phrase here. Unless I’m not seeing something in the article you posted – I don’t see any impact on .in domain owners unless they are specifically providing email services to people in india.
In fact, as you said, this adds more value to the .IN extension as it will become a much more common extension for email communication and therefore more broadly used/valuable.
theoretical – correct. But India has the power to extend this as it desires. It can create whatever rules it wants for .in.
Interesting bit of news.
I opined about this nearly two years ago.
I would have thought China first but from a government’s point of view, I see why the Mumbai issue propels this forward.
Not that I agree with it. But I think it is a matter of time before walls are erected on the internet and governments put forth controlling measures from business and individual uages.