Free Basics, an application for access to certain online services for free, was suspended by the Indian telecoms regulator.
The Indian authorities do not accept the terms of Mark Zuckerberg. Free Basics, the free Internet service Facebook is temporarily banned in India since 23 December. The Indian telecom regulator (the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India TRAI) has asked the operator Reliance Communications, which supports the service, to suspend temporarily.
Net neutrality into question
Free Basics is a mobile application allowing users free access to a number of online services: a simplified version of Facebook, weather, search engines, etc … In India, it is proposed by the telecom operator Reliance Communications. Free Basics is a draft Internet.org, an initiative run by Mark Zuckerberg, whose goal is to connect people without Internet access. The application was launched in India in February, initially, Facebook chose one partner may participate in the operation. Then the face of criticism of favoritism, the social network has been forced to open nominations for all developers wishing to offer their services on Free Basics. Facebook continues nevertheless to select which include, ultimately, in the program.
These new conditions were considered insufficient to TRAI. In the background is the question of Net neutrality, a principle which provides equal access to the Internet to all citizens. For example, on Free Basics, a search on Bing is free, but using Google’s pay. “We wonder if a telecom operator should have the right to offer services at a price different from the other,” says a source close to the matter to the newspaper Times of India . “As long as this question does not find an answer, it is not appropriate to maintain [Free Basics].” The authority has officially opened a public consultation on this subject, to be completed on 30 December.
India currently has nearly 400 million Internet users, or 30% of its total population. This figure is constantly growing. In fact, the country is a significant growth driver for Web businesses. Google also tried to connect the Indians, but in a more conventional way that Facebook, for example by equipping railway stations with Wi-Fi.
A support campaign
Free Basics is available in 37 countries in the world, Africa, Asia and Latin America. India particularly resistant to the service, to the chagrin of Facebook. The social network quickly organized a broad campaign in support of the application, through a petition, billboards or advertisements displayed in the Indian press.
Additional sign of the nervousness of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg himself on Monday issued a forum in the Times of India to defend Free Basics. “In every society, there are basic services that are so important to the welfare of the people they must be freely accessible,” he says. For him, Free Basics is essential to the lives of Indians, just like a free education or a public library. “It’s not our business interests [...] but allow access to basic services to people so that they benefit from the opportunities offered by the Internet.”
Activists Online freedoms, they accuse Facebook to promote its own services on the pretext of helping the poorest people. “What Facebook wants is that our brothers and sister the less fortunate are able to send pokes and play Candy Crush, but can not use Google, Khan Academy [an educational site, ed] [...] or seek employment on Naukri [an Indian job search portal], “accuses Mahesh Murthy, Indian investor, in an article on LinkedIn. “We want to provide Internet to all citizens of India, not just a small sample of Internet chosen by Facebook.”
Other activists point out that Facebook is a fervent advocate of net neutrality States STATES, but not in India. “People do not advance to the same services and information according to their subscriptions or telecom operator,” predicts Nikhil Pahwa, member of the Save the Internet initiative, in another article published on the Times of India. “ This system would give Facebook and Reliance Communications the power to choose the winners and losers of digital.”
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