In September 2020, the government had banned the hugely popular PUBG Mobile, owned by Tencent. This fueled the growth of Garena Free Fire in India, which has now been banned as well.
A number of Chinese apps banned in the latest round belong to large technology firms such as Tencent, Alibaba and gaming firm NetEase and are “rebranded or rechristened avatars” of apps that have been banned in the country since 2020.
ET reported on Monday that the ministry of electronics and IT
had ordered a ban on 54 more China-origin apps in India, terming them a “threat to national security”.
This is the fifth round of major bans of Chinese apps by the Indian government following border tensions with China in 2020. In June that year the government blocked 59 apps including hugely popular ones such as TikTok, Shareit, UC Browser and WeChat. Since June 2020, the government has banned around 224 Chinese apps in total.
The latest round of bans also included messaging and dating apps such as CuteU: Match With The World, CuteU Pro and FunChat Meet People Around You. Also on the list were video-based social media platforms such as SmallWorld, FancyU, MoonChat and RealU.
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The ministry of electronics and IT (Meity) issued the latest ban on the grounds that these apps were transferring sensitive data of Indians to servers in foreign countries such as China. It also directed top app stores including Google’s Play Store to block these applications. Google said that it had already blocked access to the apps in India.
Other apps that are set to be banned in India include photo enhancing and editing apps such as Sweet Selfie HD and Beauty Camera, apart from audio editing app Equalizer & Bass Booster, business card scanning app CamCard, video editing app Viva Video Editor, lock service app AppLock, and interface cloning app Dual Space Lite.
