After India’s premier Internet watchdog, TRAI skittled Mark Zuckerberg’s mega plans for providing alternate Internet through his Free Basics, France is the latest country to tell Zuckerberg to bugger off.
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And it goes on to clarify that “this prohibition shall not apply to other forms of tariff differentiation that are entirely independent of content. For instance, providing limited free data that enables a user to access the entire Internet is not prohibited”.
This move by TRAI came as a major to social networking site Facebook that had been promoting Free Basisc in India.
According to Zuckerberg, their work with Internet.org around the world has already improved many people’s lives as more than 19 million people in 38 countries have been connected through Facebook’s different programmes.
In an emailed statement, Facebook said: “Our goal with Free Basics is to bring more people online with an open, non-exclusive and free platform”.
While asserting that connecting India was critical, Zuckerberg said that, “We realize that interfacing them can lift people out of poverty, make a huge number of occupations and spread instruction opportunities”.
Web We Want program manager at the World Wide Web Foundation, Renata Avila, lauded India’s ruling, saying, “The message is clear: We can’t create a two-tier Internet – one for the haves, and one for the have-nots”. Free Basics was a $1billion project initiated by Facebook back in 2013.
Zuckerberg said said in a Facebook post that Internet.org has many initiatives they would keep working until everyone has access to the Internet.
Meanwhile, TRAI’s decision was lauded by activists.
“India’s TRAI ruling is very disappointing for the millions of unconnected citizens that have never logged on to a computer or swiped an iPhone, said Jerri Ann Henry, public advocate for Protect Internet Freedom”.
TRAI has also given six months to operators to get rid of the existing differential pricing services being offered by them.
The plans were seen as violation of the principle of Net Neutrality that calls for all websites being equally accessible.
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These basic Internet services include news, weather, Wikipedia, and, of course, Facebook.
