The Grey Areas of the IT Act

1. The IT Act, 2000 is likely to cause a conflict of jurisdiction. 2. Electronic commerce is based on the system of domain names. The IT Act, 2000 does not even touch the issues relating to domain names. Even domain names have not been defined and the rights and liabilities of domain name owners do not find any mention in the law. 3. The IT Act, 2000 does not deal with any issues concerning the protection of Intellectual Property Rights I the context of the online environment. Contentious yet very important issues concerning online copyrights, trademarks and patents have been left untouched by the law, thereby leaving many loopholes. 4. As the cyber law is growing, so are the new forms and manifestations of cyber crimes. The offences defined in the IT Act, 2000 are by no means exhaustive. However, the drafting of the relevant provisions of the IT Act, 2000 makes it appear as if the offences detailed therein are the only cyber offences possible and existing. The IT Act, 2000 does not cove various kinds of cyber crimes and Internet related crimes. These Include:- a) Theft of Internet hours b) Cyber theft c) Cyber stalking d) Cyber harassment e) Cyber defamation f) Cyber fraud g) Misuse of credit card numbers h) Chat room abuse 5. The IT Act, 2000 has not tackled several vital issues pertaining to e-commerce sphere like privacy and content regulation to name a few. Privacy issues have not been touched at all. 6. Another grey area of the IT Act is that the same does not touch upon any anti- trust issues. 7. The most serious concern about the Indian Cyber law relates to its implementation. The IT Act, 2000 does not lay down parameters for its implementation. Also, when internet penetration in India is extremely low and government and police officials, in general are not very computer savvy, the new Indian cyber law raises more questions than it answers. It seems that the Parliament would be required to amend the IT Act, 2000 to remove the grey areas mentioned above.

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