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India Curbs Power of Amazon and Walmart To Sell Products Online (nytimes.com)
The Indian government dealt a surprise blow on Wednesday to the e-commerce ambitions of Amazon and Walmart, effectively barring the American companies from selling products supplied by affiliated companies on their Indian shopping sites and from offering their customers special discounts or exclusive products. From a report: If strictly interpreted, the new policies could force significant changes in the India strategies of the retail giants. Amazon might have to stop competing with independent sellers and end its offerings of proprietary products like its Echo smart speakers in India, its top emerging market. For Walmart, which spent $16 billion this year to buy 77 percent of Flipkart, India's leading online retailer, the new rules could hamper its strategy of selling clothing and other products under its own private brands and prevent it from using its supply-chain expertise and clout with retailers to drive down prices for Indian consumers.
[...] The government posted the changes, which go into effect Feb. 1, without warning on Wednesday evening in New Delhi, while much of the business world in both countries was on vacation. [...] Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India initially courted foreign companies to invest more in the country after his 2014 election victory, but his administration has turned protectionist as his party's re-election prospects have dimmed in recent months. Mr. Modi has increasingly sought to bolster Indian firms and curb foreign ones through new policies, including one that requires foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express to store all data about Indians on computers inside the country.
[...] The government posted the changes, which go into effect Feb. 1, without warning on Wednesday evening in New Delhi, while much of the business world in both countries was on vacation. [...] Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India initially courted foreign companies to invest more in the country after his 2014 election victory, but his administration has turned protectionist as his party's re-election prospects have dimmed in recent months. Mr. Modi has increasingly sought to bolster Indian firms and curb foreign ones through new policies, including one that requires foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express to store all data about Indians on computers inside the country.
Mr. Modi has increasingly sought to bolster Indian firms and curb foreign ones through new policies, including one that requires foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express to store all data about Indians on computers inside the country.
Actually, implementing such a policy isn't protectionist. It is just common sense. After all, as an American living in the US, I wouldn't want my US financial data being stored anywhere else but the US.
India is part of Asia.
Asia is over 60% of the worlds population
Asia is where all the real economic growth is happening
This is a growing sign that Asia cares less and less about the USA.
Trump WILL do something stupid in retaliation which will only increase the growing rift between the USA and the world.
So in-sourcing bad now?
The easiest fix is to play the H-1B card.
Don't want American companies as competition in your country ?
No problem, how about we don't allow Indian workers into the H-1B Visa program . . . . at all ?
( It is, pretty much, the only thing we import from India )
Wouldn't want the competition destroying American jobs now would we ? :|
requires foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express to store all data about Indians on computers inside the country.
implementing such a policy isn't protectionist. It is just common sense. After all, as an American living in the US, I wouldn't want my US financial data being stored anywhere else but the US.
The summary lacks a citation to the statute or regulation in question, and my subscription package happens not to include The New York Times. But if information about transactions involving Americans must be stored only in America, and information about transactions involving Indians must be stored only in India, that appears to leave nowhere to store information about a transaction between an American and an Indian.
The rules, if applied with strict interpretation, would pretty much shut down any modern retailer of any type, not just the big guys. It essentially bans having fixed arrangements with suppliers - of having supply chains period.
Virtually all chains have deals they've made with suppliers. Enforced strictly, this bans modern commerce.
Therefore, it will not be enforced strictly. It will be enforced selectively.
This is the kind of thing you come up with as a gift to government officials. The public reason is just an excuse. It is a beautiful setup for a graft. Pay the right folks the right amounts, no problems.
It's protectionist in the sense that it requires contracting with (or building) an Indian datacenter, assuming they didn't do so already. If the data, while in motion, has to interact with servers outside of India, that arguably decreases security compared to it being stored and processed in the same location. This is to give India's govt. the authority to subpoena anything they might want 'to catch terrists', and isn't for customers' security.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Strangely, the world thinks the same about the president of USA
The problem with datacenters in India is reliable power. My previous company had the notion several times, but the infrastructure makes that very difficult.
So if an Indian buys something from a resident of the European Union or vice versa, where is the personal data associated with the transaction stored?
As an American IT pro, I don't much like India for obvious reasons. But this is the right thing to do.
Corporatism != Free Market
So if a transaction involves a EU citizen and an Indian citizen, where does the transaction get stored?
the first time anyone heard the term "deep state" was in [The New York Times'] reporting on Egypt. Now they claim anyone who mentions "deep states" is a paranoid nutter.
Wherever you see "deep state," read it as "institutional memory of the civil service" and see if the article still makes sense. Is that a good rule of thumb?
Trump hates Amazon, so it's okay.
I hate fat people.
Authoritarian populism has no other tools in its box.
I wonder what would happen if Amazon did a study and found that complying would lose more money then they make in that country and just didn't sell to India. Would the citizens there care and scream at their govn't for doing this, or would it just allow Indian companies who are something like Amazon to flourish? (this is a serious question)
I do agree with the person above who guessed this is really to be selectively used and a "legal way" for govn't workers to obtain graft.
This is where Bezos begins to regret his confrontational stance with the executive branch.
These rules actually seem rather sensible to me.
A) The prohibition against special discounts prevents either company from discounting their merchandise in an anti-competitive manner that would drive out local businesses.
B) The prohibition against selling exclusive products makes it so that if Amazon wants to sell Echo and Fire devices in India, then they have to allow Indian resellers to stock and sell the products as well. The same would apply to any of their other private labels (like Amazon Basics). This prevents them from having a monopoly on sales of anything carrying their brand in India. This is sensible separation that should exist between Amazon's manufacturing business and it's internet storefront business.
We've gotten so used to anti-monopolistic policies not being enforced in the US that we've forgotten what they even are. No company is supposed be allowed to become an Umbrella company that makes, sells and supplies everything.
How much has Amazon's manufacturing arm benefited from the huge exposure platform provided by their storefront? I couldn't tell you the last time I went to Amazon's front page and didn't have a giant Fire or Echo ad shoved in my face.
How many businesses has Walmart put under every time it moves into an area and used anti-competitive price structures built off of paying their employees the least amount possible along with the fewest benefits they can get away with?
Actually the rumbling about a "trade war" with China has strengthened America's economic ties with Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
No way. $1 million isn't enough to get even one cabinet minster's kid admitted to Stanford. Think bigger!
People who love America hate him too.
China-Japan trade is also high, https://www.bbc.com/news/world...
The top export destinations of South Korea are China ($121B), the United States ($70.1B), https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en...
https://vietnamnews.vn/economy...
Imagine you are a citizen of India and you want to buy an Amazon Echo. Sorry !
I wouldn't be happy about that.
The message I would get is people think I am too incapable, too stupid to know how much Amazon is oppressing me.
I would assume it is stored in both places. I didn't see any language suggesting that the data needs to only be stored inside the country. Seems logical that a transaction crossing borders would be logged on both ends.
India cares about India and they are the majority population of the world.
In the end, your only option is to force your card issuer to generate a new one.
Indeed. When I see an unauthorized recurring charge on my CC, I don't fight to get it cancelled. I just report my card stolen and request a replacement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India initially courted foreign companies to invest more in the country after his 2014 election victory, but his administration has turned protectionist as his party's re-election prospects have dimmed in recent months. Mr. Modi has increasingly sought to bolster Indian firms and curb foreign ones through new policies, including one that requires foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express to store all data about Indians on computers inside the country.
The current BJP govt did not get protectionist all of a sudden. E-Commerce policy changes are not an important topic for any partys re-election prospects.
There are far more serious issues for Indian electorate...farmer distress, rising unemployment, promises not being kept, effects of super stupid demonetization, GST implementation etc. Add social polarisation of the country with Hindu-Muslim division being played for the BJP's right wing Hindu support base .
Stray cows roaming around is probably more of a problem for Indians than whatever E-commerce stuff. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/07/16/amp-stories/why-india-has-million-stray-cows-roaming-country/
What is wrong if payment processors are asked to keep data inside geographical boundaries? (Tho technically it doesn't make much sense.) It cannot be seen as "protectionist" or "isolationist".
Tat Tvam Asi