<ul><li><keyword id="8082634" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="white-hat-jr">White Hat Jr</keyword> has charged <keyword id="10318207" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="pradeep-poonia">Pradeep Poonia</keyword> of hacking and trademark violation aside from defamation.</li><li>After a court hearing on November 23 (Monday), Poonia will have to take down some of the tweets as a part of an ad interim injunction. </li><li>The battle in court between White Hat Jr and Poonia is the culmination of a long online battle fought between the two.</li></ul><a href="https://twitter.com/whiteHatSnr">Pradeep Poonia</a> will have to take down some of the tweets, especially those accusing White Hat Jr of being a ‘ponzi scheme’, other unsubstantiated charges, after an ad interim injunction from the <keyword id="6355014" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="delhi-high-court">Delhi High Court</keyword> in the case filed by the startup founded by Karan Bajaj, bought out by peer Byju’s recently for $300 million. The <keyword id="1464841" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Edtech">edtech</keyword> firm has also charged Poonia for hacking into the company’s servers, which Poonia’s counsel has denied. It is not a final decision in the case. The court will hear both sides in the next hearing scheduled on January 6, 2021. “This court finds that the grant of an interim injunction in the present suit entails decisions on various disputed questions of fact,” Justice Mukta Gupta said, inviting Poonia to submit an affidavit in response to the charge. Under the ad interim injunction, Poonia has been restrained from: <ol><li>downloading and distributing directly or indirectly White Hat Jr’s curriculum or study material through his own channel or third party channels. </li><li>hacking or any unauthorised access to internal communication platform Slack and displaying it to the world at large. </li><li>commenting on the number or quality of teachers on White Hat Jr’s without sufficient details about the teachers’ education or their professional backgrounds. </li><li>using the name White Hat Sr for the YouTube channel and some of the videos displaying proprietary content or internal communications will have to be taken down. </li></ol>Poonia has also been directed by the court to take down tweets which have unsubstantiated claims regarding White Hat Jr. The battle in court between White Hat Jr and Poonia is the culmination of a long online battle fought between the two. Poonia has been an open critic of the edtech startup’s promises and its workplace ethics, over various social media platforms – LinkedIn, YouTube and now, Twitter. White Hat Jr has now charged Pradeep Poonia of hacking and trademark violation, copyright infringement aside from defamation and claimed damages worth $2.6 million. The court has recognised that while the defendant has the right to criticise the platform but also that “some lines have been crossed” in the process. Over the last few months, White Hat Jr has forced suspension of Poonia’s LinkedIn accounts, his YouTube videos and more. But the platform has faced criticism for its aggressive marketing. Even the lawyers for White Hat Jr admitted that some of the marketing content may have been a “gimmick”. This was in reference to the advertising <a href="https://in.news.yahoo.com/wolf-gupta-byju-whitehat-jr-090945630.html">character Wolf Gupta</a> which Poonia has called misleading and a fake advertisement. White Hat Jr’s lawyers said that “...perhaps it was a bad idea. We have taken it down.” The judge Mukta Gupta also left room to debate whether teaching young children coding is a good idea or whether the business model is an <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/whiteHatSnr/status/1316728158373068801">“EMI trap”</a>, as accused by Poonia. The judge said that there are enough arguments on both sides on children being taught coding as well as the pressures of online learning. It is important to note that the Indian government’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/education/news/india-revamps-its-education-policy-after-34-years-scraps-mphil-proposes-vocational-courses-from-class-6-ug-colleges-to-become-autonomous/articleshow/77241851.cms">recent changes to the National Education Policy</a> included the introduction of coding at a young age in schools. “His issue with us is ideological. He wants education to be free. I appreciate that. But I don’t see him going against other private schools,” White Hat Jr’s lawyer argued. The tougher challenge for Poonia will be to prove that there was no ‘hacking’ White Hat Jr has levelled a serious accusation of hacking against Poonia. Over the last few months, Poonia has shared screenshots of White Hat Jr’s team chats on Slack to call out the startup’s marketing practices, lapses in the organisation’s culture, and in the process shared the private numbers of teachers on Twitter and thus compromising their privacy. However, Poonia’s lawyer argued that there was no hacking and employees of White Hat Jr contacted Poonia to share the details. But the stance taken by the edtech firm is that any unauthorised, whether it was through hacking or through an employee sharing his/her credentials, it would be unlawful. “He put up the password of the CEO on a public forum. He did a live stream after hacking into the system for the entire weekend,” the lawyer said. On Saturday (November 21), Bajaj sent an email, which was seen by Business Insider, to his employees reminding them of the confidentiality clause in their contract and asked them not to disclose any confidential information or share their login details with any third party. This is likely to be a prolonged legal battle. “Delhi HC refused to grant a sweeping injunction against me as #WhiteHatJr wanted in their 20 Cr suit. They keep trying to silence dissent and have failed. AGAIN! Thanks to all of you who supported me! Let’s continue to fight for transparent and ethical biz practices ,” <a href="https://twitter.com/whiteHatSnr/status/1330792585162473472">Poonia said in a tweet (sic)</a> right after the court hearing. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/health/news/oxford-and-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-is-70-effective-and-india-may-authorise-emergency-use-after-uk-nod/articleshow/79365393.cms">Oxford and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is 70% effective — India may authorise emergency use after UK nod</a>

White Hat Jr gets a partial gag order against Pradeep Poonia who now has to defend a ‘hacking’ charge as well

<ul><li><keyword id="3123019" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Byjus">Byju’s</keyword> had acquired <keyword id="8080458" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="WhiteHat-Jr">WhiteHat Jr</keyword> for $300 million in August 2020, and folded it into its Byju’s Future School banner.</li><li><keyword id="327937" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Karan-Bajaj">Karan Bajaj</keyword> was also leading Byju’s Future School, one of the main elements of Byju’s international expansion.</li><li>Byju’s Head of Customer Experience and Delivery, Trupti Mukker, would now lead Byju’s Future School and WhiteHat Jr.</li></ul>Karan Bajaj, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of coding-for-kids startup WhiteHat Jr, has announced his exit from the three-year-old edtech startup. The development comes exactly a year after WhiteHat Jr was acquired by world’s highest valued edtech giant Byju’s in August 2020. <div type="ExtQuote" text="“Under Karan’s leadership, WhiteHat Jr and BYJU’S FutureSchool now enable hundreds of thousands of students in countries around the world daily to learn and create with 11,000+ deeply committed teachers. ... Having more than exceeded all our mutually outlined goals for the 1st year, Karan is now ready, as we had mutually decided at the time of acquisition, to progress to the next chapter of his life.”" auname="— Byju’s CEO and founder Byju Raveendra announced, in an internal email."></div> Bajaj’s exit may come as a surprise as he was also leading Byju’s Future School — one of the main elements of Byju’s international expansion plans — since earlier this year. Byju’s Future School had folded WhiteHat Jr under its banner to provide extra-curricular courses like coding, maths, music and more in international markets such as the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Brazil and Mexico. <div type="image" title="WhiteHat Jr’s founder Karan Bajaj quits exactly a year after Byju’s acquired the company" msid="85031150" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Karan Bajaj announces his exit on LinkedIn&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> Karan Bajaj, former Discover Network CEO, had founded WhiteHat Jr in 2018. The company started off as a platform that solely focused on live online one-on-one coding classes for kids in preschool to middle school. It was bought by Byju’s for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/how-karan-bajaj-sold-his-less-than-18-month-old-startup-white-hat-jr-to-byjus/articleshow/77415329.cms">$300 Mn</a>. The platform has over 11,000 teachers. Byju’s Head of Customer Experience and Delivery,Trupti Mukker, would now lead Byju’s Future School and WhiteHat Jr, the global edtech giant Byju Raveendran said, in an internal email. <div type="image" title="WhiteHat Jr’s founder Karan Bajaj quits exactly a year after Byju’s acquired the company" msid="85031355" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Byju Raveendran&amp;#39;s announces Karan Bajaj&amp;#39;s departure in an internal email&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> WhiteHat Jr recently announced a partnership with 500 schools across India, which would add 1.25 Lakh students to its bucket. The last one year has been extremely controversial for the WhiteHat Jr. First, it was the allegations of misleading ads that got a lot of criticism of coding-for-kids startups. Even Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI) had<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/advertising/brands/news/byjus-white-hat-jr-to-withdraw-its-social-ads-for-making-misleading-claims/articleshow/78916793.cms"> pulled up</a> the company to remove these ads for making dubious and unsubstantiated claims. Second, it was allegations of silencing all critics on social media though with content removal or abuse. Third was the infamous defamation cases against two critics — software engineer<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/white-hat-jr-gets-a-partial-gag-order-against-pradeep-poonia-who-now-has-to-defend-a-hacking-charge-as-well/articleshow/79365073.cms"> Pradeep Poonia</a> and angel investor Aniruddha Malpani. Interestly, Malpani was also banned from Linkedin in 2020 for allegedly criticizing Byju’s and its business model. The case against Poonia was <a href="https://inc42.com/buzz/whitehat-jr-drops-defamation-suit-against-pradeep-poonia/">dropped </a>in April this year. SEE ALSO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/tiger-global-pumps-enough-money-to-make-bharatpe-a-unicorn-about-a-month-after-it-got-a-banking-licence-with-centrum-as-its-partner/articleshow/85027918.cms">Tiger Global pumps enough money to make BharatPe a unicorn about a month after it got a banking licence with Centrum as its partner</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/adani-ports-shows-a-record-quarterly-volume-growth-while-the-shares-have-already-run-up-over-7-in-last-5-days/articleshow/85005554.cms">Adani Ports shows a record quarterly volume growth while the shares have already run up over 7% in last 5 days </a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/heres-why-nifty-broke-the-16000-barrier/articleshow/85004061.cms">Here’s why Nifty broke the 16,000 barrier ⁠— Titan, HDFC, Nestle and Ultratech tell the story of the euphoria in the Indian stock market</a>

WhiteHat Jr’s CEO Karan Bajaj quits exactly a year after Byju’s acquired the company

<ul><li>Indian edtech startup <keyword id="8080458" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="WhiteHat-Jr">WhiteHat Jr</keyword>, which has found itself in a potboiler of controversies, had a bug in its system that made its data of over 2.8 lakh students vulnerable. </li><li>A security researcher had pointed out the vulnerability on November 19, and WhiteHat Jr said that all vulnerabilities were fixed within 24 hours.</li><li>WhiteHat Jr went on to stress that there was no data leak.</li></ul>Indian edtech startup WhiteHat Jr, which has found itself in a potboiler of controversies recently, had a bug in its system, which made its data of over 2.8 lakh students vulnerable. On November 25, <a href="https://www.thequint.com/cyber/whitehatjr-bug-exposed-personal-data-of-28-lakh-students-karan-bajaj#read-more">the Quint</a> quoted a security researcher who reported the bug to WhiteHat Jr, who said, “According to what I found out the personal data of over 2.80 lakh students including names of their parents were lying exposed due to a vulnerability on the company's server side.” The researcher had pointed out the vulnerability on November 19, and WhiteHat Jr said that all vulnerabilities were fixed within 24 hours. "WhiteHatJr takes security and privacy issues very seriously. We are committed to both our customers and to our compliance with applicable laws. Based on information received from responsible disclosures, we reviewed our setup and worked to patch specific identified vulnerabilities within 24 hours,” said the company. According to the <a href="https://www.thequint.com/cyber/whitehatjr-bug-exposed-personal-data-of-28-lakh-students-karan-bajaj#read-more">security researcher,</a> WhiteHat Jr’s backend server was left open which allowed access to student names, age, gender, images, user IDs, parents name, and progress reports. The report also said that the access to the company's AWS servers was restricted as on November 20. Meanwhile, WhiteHat Jr went on to stress on the fact that there was no data leak. “We reiterate that no breach of data has happened in this context on company's computer systems and networks, out of an abundance of caution we are continuing our investigation to ensure that this is the case. We regularly undertake and continue with various initiatives to strengthen our Security and Privacy set-up and have also retained external security experts to assist us,” said the company. WhiteHat Jr has been in the news as it has slapped defamation suits on its two biggest critics on social media – <a href="https://twitter.com/malpani">Dr Aniruddha Malpani </a>and <a href="https://twitter.com/whiteHatSnr">Pradeep Poonia</a>. The matter is currently in court. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/white-hat-jr-gets-a-partial-gag-order-against-pradeep-poonia-who-now-has-to-defend-a-hacking-charge-as-well/articleshow/79365073.cms">White Hat Jr gets a partial gag order against Pradeep Poonia who now has to defend a ‘hacking’ charge as well</a>

WhiteHat Jr admits a bug made their data vulnerable but insists there was no breach and it was fixed in 24 hours

<ul><li>The company, which is a part of the startup world’s new favourite term – Dukaantech, helps Indian businesses go online and was launched at the peak of the pandemic. </li><li>Dukaan co-founder and CEO Suumit Shah, in an interview with Business Insider, talks about the growth he had never expected out of an app they had launched on a whim. </li><li>Dukaan is live on the Play Store again after being banned for over a month after a legal battle with <keyword id="7598194" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="khatabook">Khatabook</keyword>.</li></ul>For the barely eight-month-old Dukaan, it’s been a crazy ride. In just eight months, the startup has garnered millions of users, millions in funding, and landed in a soup with a legal battle with Khatabook. The company, which is a part of the startup world’s new favourite term – Dukaantech, helps Indian businesses go online and was launched at the peak of the pandemic. Dukaan opens Dukaan co-founder and CEO Suumit Shah, in a candid chat with Business Insider, talks about the growth he had never expected out of an app they had launched on a whim. During peak lockdown, Shah got a text from a Jockey outlet with a PDF file with all their items listed, and the text read that you can place your order on WhatsApp and they’ll deliver. This brought up two questions on Shah’s mind – why aren’t they using platforms like Shopify, what happens when they get over 50 orders or how will they keep track of them all. At this point, Shah was building a company called Rank, which had a tool that lets you know where your business stands on Google Search and other metrics. “We took a look at the market and decided to build an app that will make it easier for businesses to build their inventory. We built the app in two-three days and immediately started getting a lot of calls,” Shah told Business Insider. As the calls kept coming in and feature requests kept piling up, they realised that small businesses have their ways of creating catalogues and have different metrics. “People were doing anything to get back into the business,” Shah said and added that they found takers in people who were earlier opposed to online. Within a week, they had 25,000 orders, and by November, they had over 2.7 million stores created through their platform, which have processed a cumulative ₹100 crore in Gross Merchandising Volume (GMV). The legal battle with Khatabook For Dukaan, the fast-tracked growth hasn’t come without legal woes. The Khatabook-Dukaan legal battle became the talk of the town, as the former accused Dukaan of copyright infringement over the source code of the application. Khatabook was also running its own app called Dukaan by Khatabook. After an intense battle in court, Dukaan was ordered to take down its app from all platforms, including <keyword id="6369511" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="google-play-store">Google Play Store</keyword>. In an out of court settlement, Khatabook and Dukaan resolved the issue with <a href="https://entrackr.com/2020/11/khatabook-and-dukaan-resolve-issues-out-of-court/">Khatabook getting nominal equity in Growthpond </a>(Dukaan’s parent company). And after all that, Dukaan is now live on the Play Store again. Shah looks back at the entire legal battle and says that it has indeed been a roller coaster ride. “The issue isn’t there anymore, they allowed us to use the name Dukaan, and they’ll keep running their app; we will run ours. India is a huge market, and ultimately, the best product will win. These products need the hour, so the user will rely on the product, which helps you and gives you the output. For example, even when Paytm existed and had so many businesses, Khatabook came and created its own segment. Exactly that way, we have our own space and impact we are creating,” said Shah. Cashing in big cheques in a short time Dukaan has been one of those rare startups that has received significant funding within a month of its launch. While there are <a href="https://entrackr.com/2020/10/exclusive-dukaan-app-removed-from-play-store-after-court-relief-to-khatabook/">theories about the financing</a>, Shah says the money came their way because of the popularity of the product. “In one week, we were trending on top on the Google Play Store, investors were looking at that, and we got a lot of inbound calls. On the first call, we had a term sheet of $17 million. By the end, we had four term sheets on the table, and we had to choose who to go with,” he said. Dukaan has raised $6 million in seed funding co-led by Matrix Partners India and Lightspeed India Partners. The round also saw participation from angel investors like Haresh Chawla (Founding CEO Network18, Viacom18), Ryan Hoover (Founder, Weekend Fund and Product Hunt), Jitendra Gupta (Founder, Jupiter), Shashank Kumar (Founder, Razorpay), Sandeep Tandon (Founder, Freecharge), Prabhkiran Singh (Founder, Bewakoof.com), and Kunal Shah (Founder, Cred). But while Shah believes they aren’t growing too fast, he admits he never expected this coming. “In the beginning, a friend of mine knew someone who was a distributor for a big FMCG company. He gave me the deal that he will onboard 15000 stores and give me a 5% stake. I thought about the order; I actually considered it until I got 25,000 orders in a day. So I wasn’t expecting these numbers – the reality has been much better,” said Shah. “The kind of users were also not expected – people selling bakra on eid, panditji selling satyanarayana pooja ka saaman, these are things I hadn’t expected,” he added. But now, there’s a lot more to do Dukaan is back on the Play Store after being down for over a month, which means they have lost out on many incoming users. However, Shah claims that even while they weren’t on the Play Store, they have managed to remain a market leader as they helped the existing users. “By the end of March 2021, having 15 million merchants is what we are trying to achieve,” said Shah. And they are also coming up with new features to support merchants. “Right now, the basic app digitizes the business. The questions merchants have is how do I get more business. We will build small marketing tools that will help our users market their business — for example, WhatsApp stories. We have built a small tool where you can design WhatsApp stories and display your offers. The next funnel is how do we make sure the sellers get more reach. Online payment functionalities is another thing we are working on,” he shared. While Shah claims they made $1200 on day one, the focus is now not on revenue but on building the business. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/white-hat-jr-gets-a-partial-gag-order-against-pradeep-poonia-who-now-has-to-defend-a-hacking-charge-as-well/articleshow/79365073.cms">White Hat Jr gets a partial gag order against Pradeep Poonia who now has to defend a ‘hacking’ charge as well</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/health/news/oxford-and-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-is-70-effective-and-india-may-authorise-emergency-use-after-uk-nod/articleshow/79365393.cms">Oxford and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is 70% effective — India may authorise emergency use after UK nod</a>

You Searched For "pradeep poonia" and got 4 results

White Hat Jr gets a partial gag order against Pradeep Poonia who now has to defend a ‘hacking’ charge as well

Sanchita Dash

WhiteHat Jr’s CEO Karan Bajaj quits exactly a year after Byju’s acquired the company

Kritti Bhalla

WhiteHat Jr admits a bug made their data vulnerable but insists there was no breach and it was fixed in 24 hours

Sanchita Dash

INTERVIEW: Dukaan CEO gets candid about the clash with Khatabook now that the app is back on Google Play Store – aims for 15 million shops by March

Sanchita Dash