Data Protection and privacy

Last week Twitter, Path and other firms were found to be vacuuming users’ iPhone contact lists even though Apple Inc’s policies forbade it. On Friday, a Wall Street Journal report showed that Google was tweaking ads on Apple’s Safari Web browser to install tracking cookies which, while commonplace on other browsers, are blocked on Safari unless the user specifically allows them.
Google and Facebook last year both agreed to 20 years of privacy audits by the Federal Trade Commission after they made public customer information that users had considered private. But with few restrictions on data collection, the audits are not likely to have a major impact.
Europe has long-standing data protection laws that limit some practices that are standard in the US. The European Union is now weighing updated rules that would allow any resident to ask companies to delete information on file about them; in the US that right is only for those under 13. (Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/customer-data-collection-arms-race-feeds-privacy-fears/914185/)

India has not even initiated any steps to curb data theft. Presently it has no direct law for data protection.