06.14.22
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Web Hosting Stewardship


In a web hosting world, who are the leaders? It’s a question on which the Ananova research team daily works and tries to bring the list of authentic web hosting providers in its reports. Before making the hosting buying decision, a customer goes through company reviews. Still, it’s always back of their mind that whatever is available is unbiased and written by customers who have experienced the hosting services or done by the marketing team of the companies. A suspicious mind does not trust easily, and it’s good also. A lot of web hosting review websites are available. Does the reviewer go everywhere to give feedback? The authenticity of such a website is a big question?
The reviews posted on rating and review websites do not provide much of the facts to support the available content as they have the answer; it’s user-generated. Then how, websites like SiteGeek, Ananova, and BHJ claim to provide the list of the best web hosting providers, who are the true leaders in the market. When we raised this question through an email, they answered that user reviews are not only the criteria; their research team monitors other vital factors like uptime, hosting plan comparison, and support to strengthen the foundation for this leadership list. The process is continuous, but the research team of the above-provided websites takes the ranged data to reach their conclusions. And each time, the research starts again by exploring the same question for another period. Their reports define how their results help the hosting customer understand the company’s offerings to match its requirements. Furthermore, it explains how the hosting provider’s routine processes like updates, upgrades, backups, innovations, and new technology enhancements benefit its customers to succeed in online business. These reports are provided free of cost to the hosting consumers to embrace hosting consumers to make the right choices in the beginning.

It’s a sentence in everybody’s mouth that technology is racing, bringing many changes to how websites are built professionally. The old-style developers find it difficult to pace with the changing web hosting world. Thus, they realize to upgrade or would be uncertain about their future. The work has entered into lives and has diminished or blurred the separation between the two. These developers suggest the best hosting platform to their customers. They have been working day and night to build professional-looking websites with the provided functionality precisely per requirements. The developers also feel the burden of suggesting the right hosting provider, as otherwise, it affects the relationship with their customers and brings a time of uncertainty. Ananova reports proved beneficial for such developers, who already know and are aware of hosting technologies compared to the hosting consumers. Thus, hosting reports help them to bring a decisive & meaningful approach in choosing the hosting provider for their clients. Their clients depend entirely on these developers, as they consider that they have a higher level of engagement. The right web hosting provider brings website performance and effectiveness.

It’s apparent humans make decisions, and probably their decisions are emotionally biased. The hosting provider’s marketing team leads the approach to provide facts and hosting information to increase customers’ emotional intelligence, making them self-aware with a deeper understanding of the hosting technologies. A customer with authentic information feels strength, giving the best purpose to choose a particular web hosting provider. Ananova stewardship drives the curiosity of the hosting consumer before judging and accepting a hosting provider. It’s always challenging to choose the right web hosting provider that matches hosting needs and requirements and supports whenever the issues arise. By giving one of the best support, the hosting providers keep a healthy relationship with their customers. They encourage communication, feedback, or comments and thus, try to build confidence by being in touch.

05.04.22
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TheServerHost Web Hosting Services


An online business, store, or news portal to groom needs a fast, reliable, and best infrastructure partner. Perfect feature-rich hosting services are much needed for business website success with Control panels like WHMC cPanel, Plesk Panel, Direct Admin Panel, or CentOS Web Panel. Choosing the best hosting provider is the smartest choice that offers reliable and secure infrastructure and software and protects the website from malicious hackers, inclement weather conditions, and other issues. At a much more affordable and reasonable price, the hosting consumers look for premium managed hosting services. The consumer wants hosting services on quality processors, SSD memory, management tools, best & instant support services, regular server updates and upgrades, fast deployment, etc.

Server Maintenance: A provider must physically clean servers, the server rooms must be dust-free, and there should be no loose network cables, fans, and filters must work continuously to keep the environment cool and prevent overheating. Disk defragmentation is done periodically to increase performance and decrease the risk of data corruption. The server must be regularly checked for security, performance, overloading, and resource usage. Operating systems and applications must be updated and upgraded.

Prevent DDoS attacks: A hosting provider must be capable of detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks and prepared with a response strategy in case an attack occurs. Thus, they must plan to minimize adverse effects and protect themselves from the repercussions of a breach.

Daily Backup: Backups protect against data loss.

Most big companies, enterprises, or web hosting companies use dedicated servers to run their online business effectively. They host multiple websites. TheServerHost provides dedicated servers, VPS, Cloud & Shared hosting services. Unleash the web hosting services on a powerful web server with the art of support systems with TheServerHost.

The provider claims to provide a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee, high-speed bandwidth, a dedicated IP address, Sweden, Stockholm-based IP address, and disk space. It has a 24×7 excellent support team available to solve consumer queries. The provider is trusted by 1000+ customers worldwide, delivering world-class hosting services to all hosting servers with no initial cost.

The company’s dedicated hosting, Enterprise Cloud Computing Solution, Shared & VPS prices are the most affordable, cheapest & reasonable. The hosting services are offered through a reliable data center that utilizes Coresite premium facilities, and it guarantees best-in-class security and stability for your colo requirements.

VPS services are offered in KVM hypervisor technology and enable a client to Reinstall OS, Reboot, Suspend/UnSuspend, Change Root Password, or change server location. The KVM allows high traffic and resource needy websites or stores where many customer data, photos, and videos exist, and it does not interfere with other users’ server access. Thus KVM offers better performance over OpenVZ. The VPS hosting plans include RDP, SSD, KVM, Managed, Unmanaged & Unlimited Bandwidth.

TheServerHost offers multiple flexible Cloud VPS server hosting plans such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Alibaba. With VPS, consumers save tremendous money on hardware by utilizing software as a service. Furthermore, the platform supports all applications and allows the development and testing of applications quickly and without fear of data loss.
The provider offers Linux shared hosting services on quality hardware in more than 35 countries. The Cloud Solutions include Enterprise Cloud, Real Cloud Computing, Cloud CDN, and Managed Dedicated Servers. It comes with Arise Server with SLA Backed Network Uptime 99.95%, Lowest Latency, N+N Redundancy, Prompt Technical Assistance, and Carrier Neutral Facility. The Enterprise public cloud services feature Scalability, Flexible & Secure Cloud, Backup & Storage, SAAS & Apps, Cloud with load balancer, Dedicated Firewall & Clustering, and Cloud CDN. The private cloud customer benefitted from Self-service Portal, Robust Infrastructure, Ease to Customize, Auto-Scaling, Security, and high performance with scalability and cost-effectiveness. Most big enterprises choose the On-Premise cloud, which is featured Virtualized Computing, Swift Migration, Unified Cloud Management with the Next-Gen Hybrid Cloud orchestration, Valuable performance n undergo privilege, scalability n round business agility.

The provider offers managed dedicated servers, which are scalable, completely flexible, and only available to the customer. It’s featured with Secure Content Delivery, Power Servers, Managed Virtualization Server Load Balancer, Cluster and Firewall, Complete Control, Dual Core to Quad Core with RAID. The dedicated hosting customer has a wealth of freedom to install software or applications of choice.

The managed dedicated customers get assistance in server management, including administering, maintaining, and supporting the servers that host websites. Furthermore, TheServerHost provides backup and recovery operations, including servers and client backup, network server maintenance, installation and configuration of bandwidth, security and monitoring, upgrades, database, and application service providers. In addition, a customer also gets needed support for hardware, operating systems, networking, mail servers, and software, if any, as well as dedicated IPs for each server.

Colocation.
Full Rack with integrated power, high-density colocation, Tier 3/Tier 4 Datacenters, bandwidth, IP Address, and remote hands support Valuable end gift circuits to the colocation space, Mutually bandwidth from Telecom companies separately of the rack/cabinet.

05.03.22
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Hosting Review Squarespace


The provider offers individuals and businesses the opportunity to create a professional website, online store, display customizable galleries, or flexible portfolio. The designers can choose from an award-winning, unrivaled set of best-in-class website templates or designs or customize designs to fit their style and professional needs. Thus give a website a premium look without struggling to create it with an all‑in‑one platform. The provider allows a website to integrate with popular apps and access tools. The consumer can edit a site, update settings quickly, and access best-in-class customer support.

The company also encourages developers to turn any idea into a reality; thus, they are leaders in website design. The developers can add password-protected pages to share private work with clients.

The hosting consumers can use the provider’s blogging tools to share a story, post company news and blog posts, menus, navigation, upload images, add new pages, customize pages, categorize, share or schedule posts or announce a product release. Designers can change fonts and create a logo with a free logo maker and margins with a built-in style kit. The built-in SEO tools help the consumers to maximize prominence among search results.

The analytics features let them analyze website traffic, website visitors, their geographical locations, site paths, what visitors are looking for, and how they interact with the content or products. Furthermore, web admins can know which pages engage the most and which are best-selling products. The video studio app enables the making and sharing of engaging videos to grow the audience and drive sales.

05.03.22
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Future of Web Hosting Providers


Web hosters are always concerned about sustainability, continuity, and business growth as business needs continuous up-gradation and updates to keep pace with continuously changing technology. Big companies take over the small companies, and those who want to run their companies struggle to cope with big brands’ sophisticated, long-term hosting models. The big brands have money & human resource to plan, create strategies, and appropriately implement their processes. They apply various methods to interact with multiple stakeholders, especially their customers. The support team interacts with the technical or back-end team to help customers solve problems or issues related to their managed applications or infrastructure.

I’ve found some small hosting businesses are also managing smartly, with a limited number of customers. Runs their hosting services on public cloud VPS servers, cPanel Control Panel, Cloud Linux, and Immunify365. Their clients are individuals or small businesses with limited resource requirements. They also keep their support systems always manned to provide the best connectivity.

Most hosting businesses are emerging as Software As A Service Providers, where they have hosted applications on AWS, Vultr, or Google Cloud Computing Server. Their client needs minimal functionality, as they are more concerned with hosted applications. The hosters are termed differently, like e-commerce platform providers, educational platform providers, and health platforms. These platforms provide all the sector-related operations. SaaS providers are emerging quickly in the market and can gain a customer base by offering complete solutions.

Thus, the hosting industry seems to be divided into Public & Private Cloud Providers, Data Centers, and SaaS Providers.

05.03.22
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PyScript Framework


This weekend, at PyCon US 2022, the project was announced and acted as a wrapper around the Pyodide project, which loads the CPython interpreter as a WebAssembly browser module.

Pyscript framework is a programming and development paradigm that allows creating rich Python applications in the browser using a mix of Python with standard HTML. The scrips act as a wrapper that enables developers to embed Python code directly between py-script tags in HTML pages and execute them within the browser automatically by Pyodide without server-based requirements. The language is easy to learn, expressive, flexible, reliable, accessible, and consistent with styling rules.

Developers can use an editor to test code on the fly and create programs that run in the browser. The browser works everywhere, from laptops and tablets to phones, and is secure & stable.

PyScript’s flexible framework provides basic blocks, curated UI components, and widgets used by Visual application developers. The UI components include buttons, containers, and text boxes used for creating and sharing pluggable and extensible components directly in Python. Furthermore allows developers to access Python in the browser and other programs within the Python library ecosystem, including NumPy, pandas, and scikit-learn.
The language includes bi-directional communication between Python and Javascript objects and namespaces. The developers can manage the software environment by defining & including packages and files required for running page code.

05.03.22
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WYSIWYG Web Builder program


What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get Web Builder

The latest version, 17.2.1 of the WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) Web Builder program, comes with new features and updates and upgrades to create complete websites. The designers comfortably use the WYSIWYG, as they know that the finished page will display the same as they have designed.

WYSIWYG Benefits

The designer creates a Web Builder project file, which can hold multiple web pages, and they have complete control over the content and page layout. The Desktop publishing for the web enables the designers to easily choose certain functions and drag-and-drop objects to page positions needed to create a web page and finally publish using the One-Click Publishing tool. The designers develop HTML5 forms using built-in Form Wizard plus Form validation tools and built-in CAPTCHA. It features native form validation, new input types and options, and web storage. The advanced graphics tools and HTML5 canvas and SVG enable them to add shapes and other drawing tools, text art, rotation, shadows, and other image effects. Designers can add custom HTML code with the HTML tools and Style Manager (global styling, H1, H2, H3).

Furthermore, Fully integrated jQuery UI widgets & Theme Manager to create themes, Accordion, Tabs, etc., add animations, effects, and a built-in ThemeRoller theme editor. Many navigation tools like Navigation bars, tab menus, drop-down menus, site-tree, slide menus, Built-in Slide Shows, Photo Galleries, Rollover images, & Banners. The designers can add Google compatible sitemap generator / PayPal eCommerce Tools.

WYSIWYG comes with Login Tools/Page Password Protection, Master frames and objects, Built-in Content Management System with many plug-ins (guestbook, faq, downloads, photo album), JavaScript Events like Show/hide objects (with animation), timers, move objects, change styles, and Layers like Sticky layer, Docking layer, Floating layer, Modal layer, Anchored layer, Strechable layer and more!

The WYSIWYG supports HTML5 audio/video, YouTube HML5, Flash Video, Windows Media Player, and many other video formats. The tool comes with 250 unique extensions.

The CSS3 @font-face uses non-web-safe fonts in all modern browsers.
CSS3 opacity, border-radius, box-shadow. CSS3 gradients add cool gradient effects using native CSS3 (no images). The CSS3 navigation menu is used to create awesome menus without using JavaScript or images. CSS3 animations and transitions. Including support for 2D and 3D transforms!

WYSIWYG Process

The tool generates HyperText Markup Language (HTML5)/CSS3 document type and uploads the pages to the webserver without needing an FTP program.

Improvements

In the new version, the provider fixed some background properties of Breadcrumb, Pagination is not saved, and Memory leak in the navigation bar dialog and page properties. Furthermore, the provider improved Dark mode rendering of navigation bar image selection, HTML beautifier now preserves the formatting of tags in SVG, added the ability to alphabetically sort columns in the Link Manager and Margin, and padding in style sheet no longer has a unit for zero values (0px -> 0).

05.03.22
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Salacious, Messy Anonymous Hacking


It has become the old story now; cybercriminals steal users’ information, and customers or members are notified by hosting or social media websites. The customer’s situation is a complete mess; they shared the details with complete trust, and how such big websites get compromised. Wasn’t their security enough to stop hackers? The situation becomes salacious when they know that the hacker’s group is anonymous.

The companies claim the complete security of their user’s data and promise that they won’t be sharing or selling with 3-party companies without the user’s consent. But what if hackers breach the data? Why don’t companies take security as the topmost priority to stop such breaches? After the data gets compromised, news often comes out from such companies that the cyber security team has taken remedial action and then starts assuring customers with high priority security and privacy. The worst is when companies don’t know about such leaks for even months.

The mysterious online hacker community Anonymous always remains in news headlines. In February, a Twitter account with 7.9 million followers named “Anonymous” declared a “cyberwar” against Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. The group claimed responsibility for cyberattacks that disabled websites and leaked Russian government agencies, state-run news outlets, and corporations’ data.

The Anonymous hacktivists employ coordinated cyberattacks against various world governments, corporations, or other groups, often in the name of social or political causes. On March 6, 2022, Anonymous claims to have hacked into the Russian streaming services Wink and Ivi (like Netflix) and live TV channels Russia 24, Channel One, and Moscow 24 to broadcast war footage from Ukraine. But that doesn’t make them heroes. Let’s have a look at their past deeds.

On November 17, 2021, Godaddy, an Internet domain and web hosting company based in New York, revealed a hack on September 6, 2021, which exposed its 1.2 million customers’ emails and numbers, putting them at risk of phishing attacks. An attacker sends a fraudulent message designed to trick the victim into giving them sensitive information. The company filed an incident report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stating that it had identified ‘suspicious activity in its Managed WordPress hosting environment by an unauthorized third party. They immediately began an investigation with the help of an IT forensics firm and contacted law enforcement. SSH File Transfer Protocol, a network protocol that provides file access, transfer, and management over a data stream, and database usernames and passwords got exposed for active customers. The company immediately blocked the unauthorized third party and reset both passwords.

The company spokesperson said: ‘We, GoDaddy leadership and employees, take our responsibility to protect our customers’ data very seriously and never want to let them down. We will learn from this incident and are already taking steps to strengthen our provisioning system with additional layers of protection.’

Why are hackers so high? Can they impact thousands of websites and bring down businesses? Even with so many protections, firewalls, anti-malware, anti-viruses, and best security, how the hosting accounts get compromised still is beyond one’s thinking.

It’s not only Godaddy; almost every big company is the target of hackers. Amazon’s Twitch, a video streaming service, suffered a data leak after an anonymous hacker posted a computer file containing a vast amount of data for the public to access. Users Called ‘Disgusting Toxic Cesspool’ in a post on 4chan by a hacker. CNBC reported that the data leak included details on payments to content creators and an unreleased product from Amazon Game Studios.

Most companies use two-factor authentication (2FA), but not all their customers or members use the same. The companies always recommend changing passwords periodically. It’s time for users to know the difference between public and private information, ‘what to be shared and what not to be.’ Undoubtedly, the threats of cybercriminals will remain in the future also, but it’s the company’s and user alertness that can minimize hacking possibilities.

05.02.22
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Importance of Website Security


Security researchers claim that hackers and cybercriminals attack big web hosting companies and domain registrars. There is an increase in backdoor payload attacks against the big hosting providers. Wordfence, a popular security service, analyzes that the WordPress hosting providers and resellers gets the most affected.

The hackers exploit the vulnerabilities, gain access to configuration wp-config.php, and modify parameters to have complete control. They get a template that refers users to pharmaceutical sector spam links and injects malicious pages into search engines results. The spam templates intend to incite victims to purchase fake products, exposing money and payment details to the threat actors. The hackers with complete control alter or modify website content like links, titles, menus, or images; thus, the site appears compromised instead of the original one.

Cybercriminals steal data, passwords, and users’ personal information. The hosting customers prioritize protection and want absolute and higher standards of security measures for their websites, emails, and other resources they host on servers. Thus, the website’s reputation is maintained. The user experiences get impacted, leading to a negative experience and losing trust with website downtime or affected vulnerabilities. The website security threat leads to potential financial losses; thus, hosting consumers want to strengthen digital presence security and take a longer-term view on protecting the investment.

Over 90% of GoDaddy APAC customers participating in its 2021 Global Website Security Survey consider cyber security important for small businesses. Nearly 80% of respondents agreed that small businesses are at risk of cyberattacks. At the same time, half said they had already experienced a security breach, and a third described themselves as unsure of how to deal with a cyberattack.

The hosting providers always advise their customers to keep everything updated and upgraded. Wordfence strongly recommends that users scan the wp-config.php file immediately to detect potential backdoor injections.

Last year in November 2021, up to 1.2 million users of Godaddy’s WordPress websites got affected by an unauthorized attack. GoDaddy In. empowers millions of entrepreneurs worldwide looking to expand their online presence. The hosting provider offers tools for domains, website creation, e-commerce, content creation, and online security capabilities like Firewall and malware protections, site cleanups, and secure backups to help safeguard your customers’ and business information.

05.02.22
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Free Speech Social Media Platform Parler


Parler is based in Nashville, TN, founded in 2018, and has over 16 million growing global community of content creators. The site is an American alt-tech alternative to Twitter, a microblogging and viewpoint-neutral free speech social media platform to connect like-minded people or individuals. The users have chosen Parler, as it uses the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as a guide and welcomes everyone to the civil debate around diverse topics, emphasizes free speech, and promotes open dialogue, political views, and honest discussions without worrying.

The site allows people to speak freely without fear of being suspended or labeled ‘dangerous’ and banned. The users feel protected against the authoritarian powers of Big Tech, Big Government, and cancel culture. The site includes users banned from mainstream social networks or who oppose their moderation policies.

“We believe in more speech at Parler, not censorship, and empowering people to think and share freely. Parler is proud to help mark monumental moments in American history and Free Speech, bring attention to injustice, and bring timely and timeless art to our growing NFT and social communities,” added Parler CEO George Farmer. “This collection is perfectly aligned with our marketplace and our values and mission, something Twitter sadly doesn’t share.”

“Parler values free expression, transparency and data privacy. While our new premium NFT marketplace is working to redefine the opportunities and experiences for both collectors and creators, we are doing so with the same approach to accessibility and security found at Parler.”

It’s associated with Donald Trump supporters, conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and far-right extremists. The site has a bold vision to make freedom of expression, security, and privacy a reality through social media and Solana blockchain technology. Posts on the service often contain far-right content, antisemitism, and conspiracy theories such as QAnon. 

The site does not allow users to violate its Terms of Service and bans them if they engage in spam or abusive behavior or are reported by other users. The website does not allow creating multiple accounts, posting pornographic content, engaging in illegal activity, sending unsolicited messages, posting repetitive content, or harassing or abusive behavior towards other users.

Parler filed a subpoena requesting documents regarding Twitter’s alleged collusion with Amazon Web Services resulting in Parler’s deplatforming and removal from APP stores on January 10, 2021.

“Parler will continue to fight against Big Tech companies like Amazon Web Services and Twitter that attempt to stifle innovation and free speech through anticompetitive practices. We will continue to stand against cancel culture and the mob mentality,” said George Farmer, CEO of Parler.

People questioned the social media platform’s role in the Capitol riots on January 06, 2021, leading to the removal from the Apple App Store, and the ceasing of its web availability from Amazon Web Services. The founder and previous CEO of Parler, John Matze, was fired. George Farmer is the current CEO of Parler, and he has been working to revive the platform. The app rejoined the Apple App store.

04.30.22
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Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code


In 2021, The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified the new Information Technology Rules, 20211 (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) under Section 87 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”) and in supersession of the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011.

As per Section 2(1)(w) of the IT Act, an “Intermediary” concerning any particular electronic records means any person who, on behalf of another person, receives, stores, or transmits that record or provides any service for that record and includes:

  • Telecom service providers.
  • Network service providers.
  • Internet service providers.
  • Web-hosting service providers.
  • Search engines.
  • Online payment sites.
  • Online-auction sites.
  • Online-market places.
  • Cybercafes. 

As per Rule 2(1)(w) of the Intermediary Rules, a “social media intermediary” means an intermediary which primarily or solely enables online interaction between two or more users and allows them to create, upload, share, disseminate, modify or access information using its services.

As per the Intermediary Rules, vide notification dated 25th February 2021, a social media intermediary with fifty lakh registered users in India or above specified as threshold notified by the Central Government shall be considered a significant social media intermediary. 

Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 Required Compliances

Under Rule 3, an Intermediary is required to comply with the following requirements, which are binding on an intermediary in India:

  • 1.1.Publish on its website, mobile-based application, or both, as the case may be, the rules and regulations, privacy policy, and user agreement for access or usage of its computer resource by any person. 
  • 1.2.The rules and regulations, privacy policy, or user agreement of the intermediary shall inform the user of its computer resource not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that—
    • belongs to another person and to which the user does not have any right;
    • is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, pedophilic, invasive of another‘s privacy, including bodily privacy, insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, libelous, racially or ethnically objectionable, relating, or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise inconsistent with or contrary to the laws in force;
    • is harmful to a child;
    • infringes any patent, trademark, copyright, or other proprietary rights;
    • violates any law for the time being in force;
    • deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any information which is patently false or misleading in nature but may reasonably be perceived as a fact;
    • impersonates another person; 
    • threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting other nation;
    • contains a software virus or any other computer code, file, or program designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource;
    • is patently false and untrue, and is written or published in any form, with the intent to mislead or harass a person, entity, or agency for financial gain or to cause any injury to any person;
  • 1.3. Shall periodically inform its users, at least once every year, that in case of non-compliance with rules and regulations, privacy policy, or user agreement for access or usage of the computer resource of such intermediary, it has the right to terminate the access or usage rights of the users to the computer resource immediately or remove non-compliant information or both, as the case may be.
  • 1.4. An intermediary, on whose computer resource the information is stored, hosted, or published, upon receiving actual knowledge in the form of an order by a court of competent jurisdiction or on being notified by the Appropriate Government or its agency under clause (b) of sub-section (3) of section 79 of the Act,
    • shall not host, store or publish any unlawful information, which is prohibited under any law for the time being in force in relation to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India; 
    • security of the State;
    • friendly relations with foreign States; public order; 
    • decency or morality; contempt of court; 
    • defamation; incitement to an offence relating to the above, or any information which is prohibited under any law for the time being in force, and shall remove or disable access to that information, as early as possible, but in no case later than thirty-six hours from the receipt of the court order or on being notified by the Appropriate Government or its agency. 
  • 1.5. Shall periodically, and at least once a year, inform its users of its rules and regulations, privacy policy or user agreement, or any change in the rules and regulations, privacy policy, or user agreement.
  • 1.6.Any information which has been removed or access to which has been disabled, the intermediary shall, without vitiating the evidence in any manner, preserve such information and associated records for one hundred and eighty days for investigation purposes, or for such longer period as may be required by the court or by Government agencies who are lawfully authorized.
  • 1.7.Where an intermediary collects information from a user for registration on the computer resource, it shall retain his information for a period of one hundred and eighty days after any cancellation or withdrawal of his registration.
  • 1.8.The intermediary shall, as soon as possible, but no later than seventy-two hours of the receipt of an order, provide information under its control or possession, or assistance to the Government agency which is lawfully authorized for investigative or protective or cyber security activities, for the purposes of verification of identity, or for the prevention, detection, investigation, or prosecution, of offences under any law for the time being in force, or for cyber security incidents.
  • 1.9.The intermediary shall not knowingly deploy or install or modify the technical configuration of a computer resource or become party to any act that may change or has the potential to change the normal course of operation of the computer resource than what it is supposed to perform thereby circumventing any law for the time being in force.
  • 1.10. The intermediary shall report cyber security incidents and share related information with the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team in accordance with the policies and procedures as mentioned in the Information Technology (The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team and Manner of Performing Functions and Duties) Rules, 20133. 
  • 1.11. The intermediary shall prominently publish on its website, mobile-based application, or both, as the case may be, the name of the Grievance Officer and his contact details as well as the mechanism by which a user or a victim may make a complaint against violation of the provisions of this rule or any other matters pertaining to the computer resources made available by it, and the Grievance Officer shall
    • (i) acknowledge the complaint within twenty-four hours and dispose of such complaint within a period of fifteen days from the date of its receipt;
    • (ii) receive and acknowledge any order, notice, or direction issued by the Appropriate Government, any competent authority, or a court of competent jurisdiction.
  • 1.12. The intermediary shall, within twenty-four hours from the receipt of a complaint made by an individual or any person on his behalf, in relation to any content which is prima facie in the nature of any material which exposes the private area of such individual, shows such individual in full or partial nudity or shows or depicts such individual in any sexual act or conduct, or is in the nature of impersonation in an electronic form, including artificially morphed images of such individual, take all reasonable and practicable measures to remove or disable access to such content which is hosted, stored, published or transmitted by it. The intermediary shall implement a mechanism for the receipt of aforesaid complaints which may enable the individual or person to provide details, as may be necessary, in relation to such content or communication link.

ADDITIONAL COMPLIANCE MEASURES FOR SIGNIFICANT SOCIAL MEDIA INTERMEDIARIES

In case, an intermediary qualifies as a social media intermediary as per the definition given under the Intermediary Rules and has more than 50 lakh users, then such intermediary has to comply with the additional compliances as provided under Rule 4 of the Intermediary Rules. 

PROCEDURE AND SAFEGUARDS IN RELATION TO NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS 

In addition to the above compliances, an intermediary in relation to news and current affairs content shall publish, on an appropriate place on its website, mobile-based application, or both, as the case may be,

  • a clear and concise statement informing publishers of news and current affairs content that in addition to the common terms of service for all users,
  • such publishers shall furnish the details of their user accounts on the services of such intermediary to the Ministry about the details of its entity by furnishing information along with such documents as may be specified, for the purpose of enabling communication and coordination within a period of thirty days
  • and shall publish periodic compliance reports every month mentioning the details of grievances received and action taken thereon. 

CODE OF ETHICS AND PROCEDURE AND SAFEGUARDS IN RELATION TO DIGITAL MEDIA

As per Rule 2(1)(i) of the Intermediary Rules “digital media‘ means digitized content that can be transmitted over the internet or computer networks and includes content received, stored, transmitted, edited, or processed by- 

(i) an intermediary; or
(ii) a publisher of news and current affairs content or a publisher of online curated content;
(iii) Under part III of the Intermediary Rules, additional rules have been framed specifically for publishers of news and current affairs content and publishers of online curated content and such entities shall be administered by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.

NON-OBSERVANCE OF RULES 

Where an intermediary fails to observe these rules, the provisions of sub-section (1) of section 79 of the IT Act (safe harbor immunity for an intermediary) shall not be applicable to such intermediary and the intermediary shall be liable for punishment under any law for the time being in force including the provisions of the IT Act and the Indian Penal Code, 1860.