iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, does not like the control the American big techs have on India, particularly with Google. Numerous times in the past he has challenged their policies and have raised concerns with the Indian government.
Recently he had expressed his disapproval on how these technology giants ‘treat India’ like a third-world country and it is time they changed their attitude towards the country.
“It feels bad to be treated like a Third-World country, when we are, in fact, the largest consumer internet market in the world,” told Sharma media reports.
“More than regulations (for Big Techs), it’s about how some of these policies are enforced in India,” he added.
Sharma also said Indian entrepreneurs should call out Big Tech companies, to “make them aware” of any alleged unfair enforcement of policies.
“Suppression creates outcry…calling out these companies will make them aware. It’s good that others are joining in too,” he said.
He also spoke about WhatsApp’s new privacy policy and criticizing the messaging platform’s clarification in newspaper advertisements.
“Why does Europe get a policy and India only a newspaper advertisement?” Sharma told The Economic Times.
WhatsApp has received backlash over its new policy, which enables data sharing with its parent company Facebook.
In October 2020, Sharma raised a huge smoke against Google, after the company had temporarily removed Paytm from its Play Store over a violation of the former’s anti-gambling policy.
He went on to wage a war against Google and had gathered many other start-ups and app developers to join him in the fight. One of the key issues is the policy of cutting a 30% fee on developers which was a lot for many small startups.
It worth noting that more than 90% of Indian smartphones, 700 million, use the Android operating system of Google. Hence, there are no other alternatives for the startups and app developers of the country. And so, he had urged the government and his countrymen, to create a platform to support and spread the use desi apps.
In another instance, he had called Google a “money collecting, money siphoning” machinery. His angst against Google came after the company controversially said all billings in the Play Store will have to be done on its platform by September 2021, before extending the deadline by six months.
