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.
Meanwhile, no comments were made on the recent news by the ministry or any of the tech giants involved in the incident including Apple, Cloudflare, and Google. Such enforcement marks a major leading implementation linked to the country’s regulatory laws covering VPN apps from 2022. These make sure VPN providers and those operating cloud services keep track of their clients such as personal information like address, names, transactions done online, and their IP address over a five-year timeframe.
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.
Image: DIW-Aigen
Read next: Software Giant Microsoft To Spend $80 Billion On Better AI Infrastructure in 2025
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.
Meanwhile, no comments were made on the recent news by the ministry or any of the tech giants involved in the incident including Apple, Cloudflare, and Google. Such enforcement marks a major leading implementation linked to the country’s regulatory laws covering VPN apps from 2022. These make sure VPN providers and those operating cloud services keep track of their clients such as personal information like address, names, transactions done online, and their IP address over a five-year timeframe.
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.
Read next: Software Giant Microsoft To Spend $80 Billion On Better AI Infrastructure in 2025
