Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) has been taken down by Google Play Store and Apple App store at the behest of the Central government. Similar action was taken by the government against PUBG in September 2020. PUBG was banned in India along with 117 Chinese applications saying they were a threat to India’s sovereignty and integrity. The action was taken under Section 69 A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. A popular battle-royale format game ‘BGMI’ from Krafton Inc, a South Korean company backed by China’s Tencent, as it was concerned about its data sharing and mining in China, an Indian government source said.
PUBG had 33 million followers at the time and was one of the fastest-growing games in the country. The game was relaunched in November. But in June 2021, it was banned again amid a controversy that said the game was sending data to Tencent-owned servers in China.
Krafton announced BGMI in May 2021 and claimed it was not sending data to China. The game amassed 100 million players in a year. However, it was taken off by the two app stores. Though the game is working for those who have already installed it.
Till now, the Government of India has banned more than 270 apps, suspecting the stealing of Indian users’ data and sharing it with Chinese entities but Many of these apps came back to India with rebranded and new identities while their competitor apps tried to sweep in and filled the void left by others.
Although there has been no “server-side ban” on BGMI, which means the game would still work without any issue on users’ smartphones or tablets if they have not uninstalled it, as reported by ‘The Indian Express’
The government hasn’t issued an official statement. Google, however, confirmed they had taken the action after a request by the government.
IANS sources, however, said the action was taken under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The reasoning by the government behind the move hasn’t been shared yet. Abhay Mishra, President of Prahar, said they had been raising the issue of Tencent running BGMI in the background for over six months. “We are grateful to the government for taking this step in the interest of security and sovereignty of India,” he added.
