Two days after India blocked fifty-nine apps developed by Chinese firms, Google and Apple have started to comply with the Indian government’s order and are blocking users in China from accessing those apps.
UC Browser, Shareit, and Club Factory and other apps that India has blocked are no longer listed on Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store… Some developers including ByteDance have voluntarily made their apps inaccessible in India, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
India’s Department of Telecommunications ordered telecom networks and other internet service providers earlier this week to block access to those 59 apps “effective immediately.” Websites of many of these apps have also become inaccessible in India.
Thursday’s move from Apple and Google, whose software power nearly every smartphone on the planet, is the latest escalation in an unprecedented tension in recent times between China and India.
A skirmish between the two neighbouring nations at a disputed Himalayan border site last month left 20 Indian soldiers dead, stoking historical tensions. Earlier this week, India blocked 59 Chinese apps including ByteDance’s TikTok citing national security concerns in a move that some saw as retaliation.
In its order, India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT alleged that these apps were “compiling, mining, and profiling” users’ data that posed threats to “national security and defence of India.”
MacDailyNews Take: Tensions.
