In Brief: IT Act could get provisions to regulate digital content platforms, news portals

The Information Technology Act, 2000, could be revised with new provisions to regulate certain technology aspects of news and digital streaming portals, The Economic Times reported, citing officials familiar with the matter. The provisions, according to the people, would bring government oversight on elements such as algorithms and metadata of digital platforms, which affect what their viewers/readers get to see and collect their demographic data, including age, educational qualification, choice of content, among other things. The change may ultimately ensure that technology aspects of digital news and streaming services are governed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, while the content part stays under the purview of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, as announced last week.

Indiamart, Just Dial in legal tussle over IP rights violation

Indiamart Intermesh, the company that runs India’s oldest e-commerce platform for businesses, has won a temporary legal injunction against the launch of JD Mart, a similar B2B marketplace planned by Just Dial, Mint reported, citing court documents. Indiamart sued Just Dial in Delhi High Court on November 10, alleging that latter has infringed upon its intellectual property rights through slavish imitation of its compilations and listings as well as design and presentation of products from customers. Just Dial, on its part, has reportedly dismissed the accusations as ‘baseless’ and is moving ahead with the beta test of the site. The company said that the development of the product is on schedule and the official launch, which was initially expected December, will take place after seeking recourse from the court. Just Dial also accused Indiamart of illegal activities such as copying data and cyber-squatting, the report said.

Mamaearth appoints former PolicyBazaar head Jayant Chauhan as CTO

Honasa Consumer, the company behind baby care FMCG brand Mamaearth, has announced the appointment of Jayant Chauhan as its chief technology officer and product head. He was previously the chief product Officer at PolicyBazaar and will be responsible for overseeing the overall product strategy and engineering as well as leading the product development and infrastructure teams, a company statement said. Jayant brings over 15 years of systems and product development expertise and has played a crucial role in structuring and strengthening the product and technology verticals of companies like Samsung, Airtel, Reliance Jio and Zomato.

upGrad plans international expansion with EMEA & APAC subsidiaries

Mumbai-based U Education Management, which owns and operates ed-tech platform upGrad, has announced international expansion plans. The company said it has started building subsidiaries in EMEA and APAC regions and onboarded international CEOs to run their operations. The units will be established over the coming six quarters and make upGrad the first Indian company operating in compliance with EU-enforced General Data Protection Regulations, the company added.

ServiceNow, Workplace from Facebook to improve employee experience

Santa Clara, California headquartered software company ServiceNow has announced new capabilities with Workplace from Facebook, the enterprise connectivity platform developed by Facebook, to upgrade the experience of growing distributed workforce. Under the changes, the companies said they have enhanced ServiceNow’s existing VirtualAgent tool with two new features - Employee Campaigns integration with Workplace and Workplace from Facebook Integration Spoke. The former, they said, allows companies to distribute relevant content to employees directly through their Workplace experience, while the latter allows them to create new integrations for Workplace from Facebook to meet unique and evolving employee experience needs.