Facebook’s attempt to provide free access to a selection of websites in developing countries was dealt a blow today when India’s telecom regulator banned arrangements that charge different amounts for access to different parts of the Internet.
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The TRAI’s ruling was a clear victory for net neutrality advocates, who seek to prevent companies from restricting access to the Internet, with the regulator saying it had been “guided by the principles of net neutrality”.
Apart from Free Basic Program of Internet.org, Facebook is also actively working on other programmes that falls in the periphery of TRAI norms. “We will keep connecting the world”, Facebook Chief Operation Offcer Sheryl Sandberg said in a comment to Zuckerberg’s post. As more people gain Internet access, their usage should be “shaped only by the information made available through those select offerings”, the agency said.
Zuckerberg claimed that Facebook’s work with Internet.Org around the world has already improved many people’s lives.
“Connecting India is an important goal we won’t give up on, because more than a billion people in India don’t have access to the internet”, Zuckerberg said.
The ruling, a regulation, essentially prohibited all zero-rated internet services – that is services which customers access but data providers do not count towards their data allowance.
And with that, Facebook’s Free Basics is dead in India.
It added that it sought “to ensure that consumers get unhindered and non-discriminatory access to the Internet”.
But the scheme has come consistently under fire from digital rights groups, with Facebook accused of violating net neutrality laws with a two-tiered internet service. The agency denounced the initiative in December and asked Facebook to stop the program until it could provide more details about its terms. But one thing is for sure that Facebook won’t give up up so easily on the Indian market, as it is counted in as the emerging growth market due to its population.
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TRAI has said, mobile phone companies in India may still continue expanding internet access using other means though.
