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We update you on the most essential news from Asia in tech, media, and business—the things you need to know that you probably haven’t heard in Western media.
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Netflix Releases Controversial Indian Documentary ‘Bad Boy Billionaires’ 💰
There’s a new show on Netflix called ‘Bad Boy Billionaires,’ which profiles four Indian billionaire businessmen who are currently under investigation for fraud. Netflix had planned to launch the show last month but Subrata Roy of the Sahara Group had filed an injunction preventing the show from being released. Since Roy is one of the four billionaires profiled in the show, his legal team argued that the show would damage his reputation. However, an Indian state court lifted an injunction over the last week and now ‘Bad Boy Billionaires’ is live on Netflix in India.
Netflix has faced some challenges in India before, receiving complaints and censorship challenges against content deemed offensive. From Netflix’s perspective, the company is arguing for free speech and their own financial well-being. The new ‘Bad Boy Billionaires’ show is just the latest incident the American company is facing in their Indian operations. The four billionaires they chose to profile have some of the most high profile legal cases in the country—Roy is currently out on bail and two of the other billionaires are currently in the UK facing extradition to India.
India Plans To Launch Their Own App Store 📲
Last week, a group of prominent Indian tech companies formed a coalition against Google’s Play Store, vowing to create their own app store. This comes after Paytm, India’s largest tech startup valued at $16 Billion and with 350 Million users, was pulled from the Google Play Store—a decision Paytm’s CEO called ‘arbitrary’ and “a sanction by an American company on an Indian one.” Google’s reasoning was that some of the cashback and prize functionality of Paytm violated their policies against online casinos and gambling.
Google also had plans to create a new 30% fee for any in-app purchases in the Indian Play Store in 2021. This caused particular outrage for Indian startups as in-app purchases are a primary revenue driver for Indian startups vs. Western startups. Due to pressure from this Indian coalition of companies lobbying against the Play Store, Google announced yesterday that they are deferring this new 30% fee to 2022. At the same time, Paytm has launched their own mini-app store. Indian technology companies are developing more clout. This bold decision would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and the Indian companies would have had significantly less leverage.
China Investigates Google’s Android Mobile Operating System 🤖
Meanwhile in China, the Chinese government is planning to launch their own antitrust investigation into Google’s Android mobile operating system. The antitrust complaint was initially filed by Chinese tech company Huawei, who is accusing Google of anticompetitive practices that have hurt local Chinese companies. An official investigation is expected to be announced soon.
There are many motivations behind this. The tensions between the US and China spill over from politics into business. It’s not a coincidence that Huawei is filing the antitrust complaint against Google, as Huawei has been blacklisted by US President Trump. The ongoing drama regarding the forced sale of Tiktok adds even more fuel to the fire. And looking beyond international politics—we can see both in India and in China that Western tech giants like Google are getting more and more pushback, which is a function of the growing leverage of Asian countries. And unfortunately for Google specifically, the company is now being accused of antitrust violations both in the US and China!
Update #80 - Netflix India, An Indian App Store, and Google Chinese Antitrust