Live
- GMR Airports Unveils AI-Powered Digital Twin Platform to Transform Airport Operations
- India poised to become leading maritime player: PM Modi
- Top Causes of Kidney Stones and How to Recognize Silent Symptoms
- India’s renewable energy capacity logs 14.2 pc growth at 213.7 GW
- Winter Session of Odisha Assembly adjourned sine die
- Biden calls Trump's tariff approach 'major mistake'
- After Drama Over Eknath Shinde’s Chief Minister Race, Maharashtra Cabinet Formation Faces New Tensions
- Egyptian FM, Blinken discuss recent developments in Syria
- Iran's supreme leader says Syria's developments result of US-Israeli 'plot'
- Elon Musk to Purchase $100 Million Luxury Mansion Next to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago, Report Reveals
Zuckerberg's India Battle Seen As Global Test-Case For Facebook
Highlights
India has become a battleground over the right to unrestricted Internet access, with local tech start-ups joining the front line against Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg and his plan to roll out free Internet to the country\'s masses.
India has become a battleground over the right to unrestricted Internet access, with local tech start-ups joining the front line against Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg and his plan to roll out free Internet to the country's masses.
.jpg)
The government has ordered Facebook's Free Basics plan on hold while it decides what to do.
The program, launched in more than 35 developing countries around the world, offers pared-down web services on mobile phones, along with access to the company's own social network and messaging services, without charge.
But critics say the program, launched 10 months ago in India in collaboration with mobile operator Reliance Communications violates principles of net neutrality, the concept that all websites on the internet are treated equally. It would put small content providers and start-ups that don't participate in it at a disadvantage, they say.
"India is a test case for a company like Facebook and what happens here will affect the roll out of this service in other smaller countries where perhaps there is not so much awareness at present," said Mishi Choudhary, a New York-based lawyer who works on technology and Internet advocacy issues.
Also at stake is Facebook's ambition to expand in its largest market outside the United States. Only 252 million out of India's 1.3 billion people have Internet access, making it a growth market for firms including Google and Facebook.
In a letter seen by Reuters, the heads of nine start-up including Paytm, backed by China's Alibaba Group, and dining app Zomato, have written to the watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) urging it to ensure Internet access was allowed without differential pricing.
"There is no reason to create a digital divide by offering a walled garden of limited services in the name of providing access to the poor," they wrote.
Zuckerberg has got personally involved. "We know that for India to make progress, more than 1 billion people need to be connected to the Internet...what reason is there for denying people free access to vital services for communication, education, healthcare, employment, farming and women's rights?" he wrote in The Times of India newspaper this week.
The regulator, TRAI, has asked Facebook and Reliance Communications to suspend Free Basics until a final policy decision is made next month.
"In a democracy you have both sides - you have Facebook spending so much on the campaign and on the other side you have internet activists making their own efforts," TRAI chairman Ram Sevak Sharma told Reuters.
"Our job is to make a policy that is in the interest of telecom operators and end users in India."
Next Story
ADVERTISEMENT
