New Delhi/Mumbai: Just within days after local rival Paytm came up with a complain that the online payment platform by Google allowed disclosure of customer private data for advertising and other purposes, the US tech giant fine-tuned the issue of the privacy policy of its digital payments mobile application Google Pay to comply with the Indian laws.
The issue was highlighted by Paytm amid the current atmosphere of ongoing debates about user privacy security and the way technology firms treat data in India as well as abroad. As of now, the government is in the process to develop a new data protection law which could help in the law enforcement agencies to force the companies to comply with the country’s policy to influence the way they store or transfer the customer data.
Paytm had filed a complaint in a letter to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on September 13 and said that the privacy policy of Google’s Pay implied “clear disregard for a consumer’s need for privacy”.
Google Pay’s privacy policy had stated that it could “collect, store, use and/or disclose” personal data and “any communications made through Google Pay”.
After the complaint, a Reuters review said that the privacy policy of Google’s Pay was updated on Thursday and the now the company does not display the word “disclose” in its privacy clause.
As per the Reuters report, Google said in an official statement that the changes were made to make it very easy for consumers to understand the company’s monetization and data usage policy.
The company declined to respond to a query whether the change in policy was made due to the recent complaint letter by Paytm or due to any communication from the NPCI in this regard.
“These changes are done from time to time and are based on product features and development,” a Google spokesman said.
The chief of the NPCI, Dilip Asbe, too declined to comment over the issue of Paytm complaint. The agency oversees the payment services in India.
When asked for comment from Paytm, it too declined in this regard. Paytm is supported by Alibaba of China and SoftBank of Japan.
The letter by Paytm to NPCI implies the fierce competition in the Indian digital payments market, which is expected to grow five-fold up to USD 1 trillion by the year 2023.
Along with that, other companies too are vying for a bigger share of the market which includes PayPal and Facebook’s WhatsApp.
Paytm gained importance of usage after the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, banned all high-value notes in November 2016, resulting in the boosting of digital payments. It has got a total of 95 million active monthly users when compared to Google Pay’s 22 million user base.
Both the mobile-based apps serve its customers by providing payment services using NPCI’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system that permits the instant money transfers and merchant payments.
As per the previous privacy policy, Google Pay stated that UPI transaction could be utilized for monetization purposes by the platform itself. But, according to the company’s claim, it would not do so now.
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