Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg was given a hard time by critics in India after his effort to provide Indians with free access to a limited number of Internet services.
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Facebook has mounted an aggressive campaign for Free Basics after a similar initiative known as Internet.org was stalled after a fierce backlash from those who believe that the programme violates net neutrality. Because Free Basics simply provides free access to certain websites and does not charge different amounts of money for different web services.
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“This is just a smart customer acquisition or a user acquisition strategy from Facebook”, Pahwa said.
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Telecom regulator Trai today extended the last date for receiving comments on its paper on differential data pricing a key aspect of the raging debate on net neutrality by about a week to January 7.
While Free Basics is now on ice in Egypt and India, the program could make a comeback after regulators in each country have a chance to examine it. While Free Basics toes the line with net neutrality, it is hard to argue the benefits of bringing more people to the modern age, making the issue a worthwhile discussion for each nation in the program. He already launched the service in partnership with 35 mobile operators in more than 30 countries around the world.
Supporting Facebook’s Free Basics service, NGO Telecom Watchdog today said TRAI should not stop any service which is offered free to consumers.
Sharma said TRAI has received 18.27 lakh comments till now, out of which 14.34 lakh were in support of Free Basics and the comments did not answer the questions asked by the regulator.
“The questions which were raised in that paper were – whether a telecom service provider (TSP) has the discretion to offer differential prices for different websites”.
It was not immediately clear why the program was halted. Furthermore, other countries might follow in India’s footsteps and decide to review the service in their respective territories.
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The primary mobile apps Facebook is pushing through “Free Basics” are their own, and all other apps, as innovative and helpful as they might be, would be subject to guidelines and an approval process created by Facebook.
