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Indian market to triple in terms of number of Internet users, says Google
MUMBAI: Google Inc. expects India‘s Internet users to triple by 2014. However, cashing in on this opportunity is a challenge as television and newspapers gobble a major chunk of advertising, a report said Friday.
Google‘s country head in India, Rajan Anandan, told the Wall Street Journal that the search giant predicts India reaching at least 300 million Internet users by 2014, up from about 100 million now.
With only eight per cent of the population having access to Internet, India already occupies the third position in terms of number of users, behind China and US.
“Despite a lot of the infrastructure challenges we have as a country, 100 million Indians are online,” Anandan, a former Microsoft executive who took over Google‘s India operations in March, told the newspaper.
“They‘re spending a huge amount of time online and they‘re doing a varied set of things online.”
“Making money off that growing audience, though, is proving difficult thus far for Google and other Internet companies,” Anandan told the newspaper.
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
