Greater than half-a-dozen VPN apps, together with Cloudflare’s widely-used 1.1.1.1, have been pulled from India’s Apple App Retailer and Google Play Retailer following intervention from authorities authorities, TechCrunch has realized.
The Indian Ministry of Dwelling Affairs issued elimination orders for the apps, in keeping with a doc reviewed by TechCrunch and a disclosure made by Google to Lumen, Harvard College’s database that tracks authorities takedown requests globally.
Among the many affected apps are Cover.me and PrivadoVPN. In communication to one of many affected builders, seen by TechCrunch, Apple cited a “demand” from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Middle, a part of the Ministry of Dwelling Affairs, which deemed the developer content material to contravene Indian regulation.
The ministry, in addition to Apple, Google and Cloudflare, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
This enforcement motion marks the primary vital implementation of India’s 2022 regulatory framework governing VPN apps. The principles mandate that VPN suppliers and cloud service operators preserve complete information of their clients, together with names, addresses, IP addresses and transaction histories, for a five-year interval.
The stringent necessities prompted pushback from main business gamers. Main manufacturers like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, SurfShark and ProtonVPN voiced vital reservations concerning the guidelines, with a number of saying plans to withdraw their server infrastructure from India.
NordVPN, ExpressVPN and SurfShark proceed to take care of providers for Indian clients, although they’ve stopped advertising and marketing their apps within the nation.
