The Indian High Court has ordered the ban on Proton Mail services.

Source: Cointelegraph Original text: "India's High Court Orders Ban on Proton Mail Service"

A court in India has ordered the ban of the cryptocurrency email service Proton Mail in the country because the platform refused to provide user information to the authorities.

At the hearing of the Karnataka High Court on April 29, Judge M Nagaprasanna ordered the government to "immediately block" domains related to Proton Mail, based on the powers granted by the country's Information Technology Act of 2008. This ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in January by a design company in New Delhi, which accused some of its employees of receiving insulting emails through the service.

It is unclear whether the ban will take effect or face other challenges in court. The Proton team had reported in March 2024 that Indian authorities had also asked for a ban on the service on the grounds of alleged "fake bomb threats", but the platform was still operating in India.

The crackdown on Proton Mail appears to be part of a larger trend of taking action against platforms based on user activity worldwide. For example, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France, partly for allegedly failing to regulate illegal content. Cointelegraph has reached out to Proton for comment but has not received a response as of the time of publication.

In 2024, Proton AG, the Swiss company behind the platform, provided information about a user to Spanish authorities. This move raised concerns among many privacy advocates regarding the data security of this centralized service.

Competing for market share in the most populous country in the world.

Cryptocurrency exchanges are no strangers to legal sanctions from various countries attempting to restrict their activities, and in some cases, they may face blocks or bans. In 2022, U.S. authorities imposed sanctions on crypto mixers like Tornado Cash, which immediately faced strong opposition and legal challenges from the industry; meanwhile, it was reported that South Korea blocked 14 exchanges in the Apple Store for allegedly operating without proper registration.

In India, profits from cryptocurrency trading are subject to a 30% capital gains tax (effective from April 2022). Despite the increasingly stringent regulations faced by crypto businesses operating in India, it is estimated that the number of digital asset holders in this country of approximately 1.4 billion people has surpassed 100 million.

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