Isps To Come Under Scrutiny For Caching Under It Bill

Internet service providers (ISPs) in India are likely to be put under the scanner once the Information Technology Bill is passed by the parliament, as most ISPs practice caching, a technique which is practised without the express permission of the owner of the worldwide web page.

According to a study conducted by the PricewaterhouseCoopers dotcom unit Indiainitiative.com, under the proposed legal framework, any person who without the permission of the owner, or any other person-in-charge accesses, downloads, copies or extracts any data from a computer system or network, including information or data held or stored in any removable storage medium, shall be liable to pay damages of Rs 10 lakh.

 

"Caching" is used to improve response time for end users. Caching means the copying of a web page/site and storage of that copy for the purpose of speeding subsequent access. There are several levels at which caching may take place _ at the level of the computer, on the hard drive, at the level of the proxy server or at the level of the ISP server. ISPs in India, like the worldover, are using the technique of duplicating and storing frequently visited web pages on its servers for improving the response time to the end users and to relieve the congestion from its network.

The bill clearly states that an ISP shall not be liable "for any third party information and data made available by him", if he proves that the offence was committed without his knowledge or that he had exercised due diligence to prevent the commission of the offence. Although the bill does not specifically deal with the concept of "caching" per se, the same can be read into the bill, which provides stringent punishments for committing computer crimes.

The study states that under the proposed legislation, the ISP officers-in-charge or responsible to the company would be punishable. Thus we see that under the current and proposed legal framework, caching is considered to be an illegal activity which is punishable with pecuniary fine and imprisonment and such a liability may be debilitating upon the ISP's business.

Currently, 225 ISPs have been permitted to offer services, of which a large number have already commenced commercial operations. However, the infrastructure in terms of connectivity continues to be a major hindrance to

users. Lack of adequate bandwidth ensures that the connectivity is slow and frustrating. In order to overcome the problem of bandwidth and connectivity, many ISP in India have resorted to "caching".

In India the high use of network lines and excessive load on popular servers, along with inadequate bandwidth has led to an inordinate delay in downloading information, which frustrates many users. Until the Internet infrastructure is upgraded to facilitate faster transmission of information, caching is bound to be a popular practice with ISPs.