Facebook’s Internet.org loses supporters in India thanks to net neutrality concerns
Facebook Inc’s internet connectivity organization, Internet.org, is facing difficulties in India after multiple Indian businesses pulled their support for the platform due to concerns that it violates principles of net neutrality.
Internet.org is a Facebook-owned organization that is dedicated to connecting the world by building internet connectivity in developing countries. It does this by partnering with local telecoms to provide affordable mobile internet plans, as well as by creating free mobile apps that have low resource requirements that allow them to function on inexpensive phones.
Internet.org operates in several countries with developing economies, and it first came to India in February 2015. Net neutrality is currently a hot button issue in the Indian business community, and several Indian companies have pulled support for Internet.org because they say its “zero-rate” deals prioritize certain types of web traffic over others, which violates the idea of net neutrality.
One of the largest groups to come out against Internet.org is media giant the Times Group.
“As for the Times of India itself, the group commits to withdraw from internet.org if its direct competitors—India Today, NDTV, IBNLive, NewsHunt, and BBC —also pull out,” the Times Group said in a statement. “The group also encourages its fellow language and English news publishers—Dainik Jagran, Aaj Tak, Amar Ujala, Maalai Malar, Reuters, and Cricinfo— to join the campaign for net neutrality and withdraw from zero rate schemes.”
Travel planning site Cleartrip also pulled support for Internet.org, citing similar reasons.
“The recent debate around #NetNeutrality gave us pause to rethink our approach to Internet.org and the idea of large corporations getting involved with picking and choosing who gets access to what and how fast,” Cleartrip CEO Subramanya Sharma wrote in a blog post. “What started off with providing a simple search service has us now concerned with influencing customer decision-making by forcing options on them, something that is against our core DNA.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously come out in favor of net neutrality, but he recently stated that free app systems like Internet.org could coexist with net neutrality, but many Indian businesses are unconvinced.
photo credit: Ksayer1 via photopin cc
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