Application Basics Free Illustration – Screenshot

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India gives a headache to Mark Zuckerberg. As Bloomberg reports the site, Indian authorities decided to suspend Free Basics, a free service created by Facebook, allowing access to a simplified version of social networking, weather, a search engine etc. On behalf of net neutrality, the Trai (the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has asked Reliance Communications, the operator responsible for the service, to ban the service.



Lack of neutrality and favoritism

Since February, the Indian mobile application allows customers to connect to the Internet for free. Until then nothing problematic, if not as to which Internet users connectaient was designed by Facebook, which decided the partners that can participate in this project. Widely accused of favoritism, the social network has subsequently decided to open nominations to all, while retaining ultimate control.

Despite this effort, the Trai still decided to ban the service , raising the question of Net neutrality. For the Indian telecoms regulator, the social network would continue to promote certain services, and in other departs. Eg via Free Basics, a search on Google is paying, on Bing, no. “We have no problem with the free internet from the moment where it all OPEN. Free Basics is only a means to lock users to the Facebook ecosystem. There are no Google or YouTube, “said Mahesh Murthy, boss of an Indian startup interviewed by Bloomberg. “It is not possible that the rich have access to the entire Net when poor, they can only access Facebook.”



Facebook launched a support campaign

Faced with this rejection of the Indian authorities, Facebook was quick to strike back against. In addition to a support campaign (petition, billboards), founder of the social network in person spoke via a platform in the Times of India. “ In every society, there are basic services that are so important to the welfare of the people they should be freely available,” said Mark Zukerberg, “it is not our interests commercial (…) but to allow for access to basic services to people so that they benefit from the opportunities offered by the Internet. “

If Free Basics is present in 37 countries, India, with its 400 million Internet users, still remains an important market for Facebook. The standoff is therefore only beginning

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