Regulating WhatsApp And Skype? TRAI Seeks Industry Opinion

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has sought views from Industry on whether there should be regulation, mainly focusing on economic and security matters, on Over The Top (OTT) services like Whatsapp, Skype and Viber, The Economic Times has reported.

TRAI, on Monday (12 November), released a consultation paper inviting views of the industry to pinpoint which of these apps should be treated as providing services similar to telecom service providers (TSPs).

TRAI has asked the industry about whether these apps need to be regulated like TSPs in the matter of lawful interception in the interests of national security. It also asked whether these apps should be treated in a different manner than TSPs when it comes to ensuring privacy and data security.

TRAI, in the paper, said that the consultation had been chosen to only focus on economic concerns and regulatory issues pertaining to such OTT services.

“This consultation paper seeks to analyse and discuss the implications of the growth of OTT services as can be regarded the same or similar to the services provided by TSPs, the relationship between TSPs and OTT players, whether any change is required in the current regulatory framework and the manner in which such changes should be affected, if any.” stated the paper.

TRAI has said that its latest paper has included the views of stakeholders provided in the discussion paper that was done on the subject in 2015.