Videolan, the developer and operator of popular media player VLC, has filed a legal notice to India's IT and Telecom ministries, accusing them of not giving it a chance to explain.
VideoLan president and lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf said in an interview that Indian telecom operators have been blocking the company's website since February. India is a large market for VLC.
He said that the internet service providers were blocking the site in India. On February 13 of this year, the VideoLan website was blocked by the telecom operators because of a drop in traffic from the South Asian market.
VideoLAN is working with the internet freedom foundation to get answers. It wants a copy of the blocking order for VideoLAN website in India and a chance to defend the case through a virtual hearing.
VideoLAN believes that the way Indian ministries have enforced the ban on the website violates their own local laws. There is a letter added.
As per Rule 8 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 (‘Blocking Rules’) and the ruling of the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1, government officers responsible for issuing a blocking order are required to: (i) make all reasonable efforts to identify the originator or intermediary hosting the information to be blocked, (ii) issue a notice to such person, (iii) provide a hearing to such person before the concerned authority, and (iv) provide a copy of a reasoned blocking order to the person concerned prior to the hearing. Despite this, the URL, which allows users to download VLC was blocked by the DoT without any prior notice, or an opportunity of hearing to VideoLAN.
The VideoLan website has been blocked by Indian telecom operators, but there is no explanation as to why.
A hacker group with ties to the Chinese government has been exploiting popular applications to gain remote access to the victim's computers, according to a report by a security firm. Kempf said that he or his firm had not been contacted by any Indian government agency and that the block was probably a result of amisunderstanding of the Chinese security issue.
The citizens of India are being pushed to shady websites that are running a hacked version of the software. Kempf said that the ban endangers their own citizens.
VideoLAN warns in the legal notice that if it doesn't comply with its request, legal proceedings will be initiated. The notice says that any proceedings will be at your risk, cost, and for breaching your own rules.
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