With the recent ban of the extremely popular game ‘Free Fire’ in India, hell broke loose among the fans of the game in the region. The ban resulted in a sloppy slide for business with investors getting badly affected after this step was taken by the Indian government over data privacy issues. Following the ban of ‘Free Fire’, which is owned by a tech conglomerate headquartered in Singapore, it has become a matter of serious concern for Singapore. In a diplomatic intrusion by Singapore, they asked why the app was being targeted even though it's owned by Sea Ltd.

India debarred a total of 321 apps, TikTok being a prominent app that was initially banned, with Free Fire being the latest inclusion in the list. As India was the key market for the famous game, the market value of the New York-listed Southeast Asian firm went down by $16 billion in a single day. Investors fear that Shopee, a newly launched Sea's e-commerce app in India might be next on the crosshairs. 

As per Reuters, sources have informed that Singapore doubted if the app "was banned unintentionally”, as Sea claimed that they do not transfer to, or store any data of Indian users in, China. They followed laws laid down by the Indian government in terms of users’ data privacy. However, sources have further informed that India's IT department, its external affairs ministry and the office of the main government spokesperson did not respond to Singapore’s query.

China also seemed dissatisfied with obvious trouble to its business due to the recent bans of such a long list of apps as they feel India is treating them differently unlike its other foreign investors. The future is uncertain for any Chinese linked apps as India looks determined to block any such app which seems to pose threats of data leakage.