India’s Internet users steadily increase.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A report released by a California-based firm says that India is ranked second when it comes to requests made on users of the popular social networking site Facebook.
The “Global Government Requests Report†states that, between the months of January and July of this year, the Indian government and law-enforcement agencies made between 11,000 and 12,000 requests for information from nearly 21,000 Facebook accounts. The only country that beat India was the US, which the report states had about 12,000 requests made on Facebook users within the country.
The requests made by government and legal agencies are typically used in criminal cases, such as kidnappings. Government bodies use Facebook information, which can range from photographs to IP address logs. By law, Facebook is required to turn over any evidence that may assist in a criminal investigation.
Government tracking of its citizens has been one of the most hotly debated topics in the news in recent months, mostly because of former National Security Advisor (NSA) contractor Eric Snowden, who blew the whistle on alleged spying practices employed by the government on its citizens; he is currently in exile in Moscow.
The report also comes on the heels of another report that states that India has overtaken Japan to become to third-ranked country in terms of Internet usage, trailing only the US and China at #2 and #1, respectively.
The Telecom Regulatory Agency of India (TRAI) stated that, as of the end of March 2013, there were over 164.8 million Internet subscribers and 74 million active internet users in the country, with roughly 14% of the Internet usage coming from mobile devices (phones, tablets, etc.) alone.
The Internet usage numbers represent a 31% increase over the figures from the same time in 2012. Facebook is the most popular site for social networking in India, followed by LinkedIn and Twitter. The report was put out by comScore, a US-based internet analytics company headquartered in northern Virginia.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com