Facebook launches 'internet.org' in India
1) Facebook has announced a tie-up with Reliance Communications to launch Internet.org in India, becoming the sixth destination apart from Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia and Ghana.
2) The tie-up gives subscribers of Reliance Communications who have Internet-enabled handsets free access to 38 websites – a mix of news, music, education, weather and health sites. The list includes Facebook, Wikipedia, and Reliance Astrology. The lone search option available is Microsoft’s Bing. They can be accessed via an Android app.
3) According to Reliance Communications, this partnership will not only accelerate internet penetration in India, it will also open new socio-economic opportunities to users in fields like education, information and commerce.
4) The service has gone live in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. The pan-India launch is planned in three month.
Internet.org
a) Internet.org is a Facebook-led initiative was launched on August, 2013 with six other founding partners viz. Samsung, Ericsson, Meida Tek, Microsoft, Opera Software and Qualcomm.
b) It aims to bring affordable Internet access to everybody by increasing affordability, increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access.
c) Criticism :
i. Critics see little altruism in Internet.org. Rather they see it as a huge challenge to the neutrality of the Internet.
ii. They're offering a limited version of the internet, one that centers on Facebook, to low-income internet users. That raises real concerns that this is not a charitable effort, but a customer acquisition strategy.
iii. A selective access to the Internet makes it extremely difficult for rivals not part of the service.
iv. The Internet.org model violates most definitions of net neutrality, as it provides access to a limited menu of services claiming to be the Internet rather than providing actual access to the Internet at a low cost.
Net Neutrality
1) Net neutrality/network neutrality/Internet neutrality/net equality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication.
2) Neutrality proponents claim that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services.
3) Example : In December, 2014 Airtel planned to charge VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) data i.e. levying charge on skype calls, video and voice chats etc. They could not implement planned changes due to heavy criticism.
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