Gmail & Yahoo Emails Should Route Through Servers In India: DIT

Looks like the Government Of India is really after the digital communication in India. TOI #-Link-Snipped-# that in a recently held high-level meeting in the office of Union Home Secretary R K Singh; the Department Of Technology (DIT) has been asked to take up the matter with the email service providers like Gmail, Yahoo & others. The Government Of India wants that all the email accessed by Indians should route through servers physically located in India even if the email account was created outside India. Government is ensuring that the security agencies will have direct, real-time access to the digital communication among Indians.


Government Of India Vs. Gmail & Yahoo: Image Credit: Deccan Herald

Yahoo might find itself in a better position as compared to others. Minutes Of Meeting revealed that the director general of CERT had informed that Yahoo automatically relocates all the email accounts registered in India to Yahoo's servers located in India automatically. However, the accounts registered by Indians outside India were not relocated to India. As an action item of the meeting; DIT will now ask Gmail, Yahoo and other similar content providers to route all the emails accessed in India to route through servers physically located in India. Government took the decision after its security agencies failed to gain access to the suspected email accounts operated by terrorist groups.

We recently reported that Research In Motion (RIM) has already #-Link-Snipped-# and the server has been examined by Indian security agencies. It's now clear that Google, Yahoo and other content providers too will have to follow Government's instructions. Do you think that the Indian Government is trying too hard to gain control over the Internet? Or the step is justified, given it's security related? Share your opinion.