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Facebook submits to the TRAI supporting differential pricing of data [pdf]
- bugger_guy 11y agodid they do that? but how can they. didnt they say to FCC that such practices are against NN and how can they say this in INDIA. isnt it hypocrisy?
- gcr 11y agoThe FCC doesn't have jurisdiction in India. Super simple. Facebook, or other foreign capitalistic entities, can do basically whatever they want. This could change when: - The country puts more regulations on Internet service providers like the FCC does here (maybe this is happening? maybe this isn't? I'm not familiar with India ISP regulation entities), or - The people say "No" and choose not to use this service. But that would mean saying "No" to free Internet access. Your boss and your spouse are on Facebook, why wouldn't you want to be? Or - The politicians say "No" to foreign capitalistic companies. We see something like this in the EU (see their privacy laws and recent government draft legislation about keeping personally identifiable data about Europeans on European servers), and we also saw something like this in China, where the government effectively gets control of who to blacklist via the firewall and censorship policies. And we all know how popular those are. Looks like there aren't many good solutions here.
- jace 11y agoTRAI is India's telecom regulator and is currently running a consultation on whether differential pricing of data should be allowed. Facebook has run a $44 million ad campaign in the country asking the public to lobby TRAI about something they're calling "digital equality". TRAI isn't amused at all and has thrown out their submissions as invalid, because they didn't answer the questions the regulator had asked. http://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/trai-facebook-fight-free-basics-consultation/50540660 http://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/trai-... OP's post is Facebook's own submission to the regulator.
- gcr 11y agoWhat I'm curious is: how many Americans recognize this hypocrisy and take action (e.g. stop using Facebook or campaign against it?) After all, we have the oversight of the FCC to prevent this from happening here (at least to some degree).
- allengeorge 11y agoIndia is far away - why should I care what happens there? Facetiousness aside, I suspect the statement above answers your question. As far as the average citizen is concerned it's "not my problem" (and honestly, they probably have more immediate problems with obvious impact). Besides, net neutrality doesn't have the same emotional imagery or appeal as sweatshop labor or species extinction, though its long-term impact (deciding who gets to see what) has severe consequences for societal health.
- defective 11y agoHow many Americans are going to read this posting on an Indian regulator's website?
- lucozade 11y ago> We see something like this in the EU The EU net neutrality legislation has specific exemptions for precisely what Facebook wants to implement in India i.e. internet.org [0] [0] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/27/eu-net-neutrality-laws-fatally-undermined-by-loopholes-critics-say http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/27/eu-net-neu...
- return0 11y agoHypocrisy isn't illegal.
- ikeboy 11y agoWhere did Facebook tell the FCC that zero rating should be banned?
- jace 11y agoIt's remarkable that a company that stands strongly in favour of net neutrality in the US is so strongly against it in India. Speak of double standards. So strong against it, they've spent $44 million in ads to tell the public to oppose net neutrality and instead support something they're calling "digital equality", aka free Facebook (and friends) without data charges. Source for $44 million figure: https://twitter.com/raju/status/686000321965985793 https://twitter.com/raju/status/686000321965985793
- bugger_guy 11y agowhy would they do that? isnt this public and wouldnt it be against what they stand for?? are u sure about what u say??
- nileshtrivedi 11y agoOP is correct. This is precisely what Facebook is doing. They ran a huge print/outdoor/mobile/TV ad campaign demonizing net neutrality activists. They also ran an astroturfing campaign spamming the telecom regulator TRAI, which is now pissed at them for misleading advertising and abusing the consultation process.
- akerro 11y ago>stands strongly in favour of net neutrality in the US Could you provide some sources?
- jace 11y agohttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/08/google-facebook-and-amazon-sign-letter-criticising-fcc-net-neutrality-plan http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/08/google-fac... http://mashable.com/2014/05/08/fcc-letter-net-neutrality/#asiZcPhnQOqd http://mashable.com/2014/05/08/fcc-letter-net-neutrality/#as...
- ikeboy 11y agoNone of that is against zero-rating. They specifically mention paid prioritization, which means the data is prioritized, while zero-rating is a billing practice.
- scorpion032 11y agoWould Facebook exist today, if there were a gatekeeper (AOL, Google, Yahoo?) that needed to approve it as a "Basic service", that had exclusive access to a billion users? This Anti-competitive practice is as notorious as the ones MSFT once engaged in at their peak, for which they still get a lot of negative press, decades later.
- onewaystreet 11y agoFacebook would only be a gatekeeper in India if no one else decides to offer a competing service. Google plans to.
- atnixxin 11y agonope. then both would be gatekeepers for their own. even if you disagree with this, the carriers are still playing gatekeeper by zero rating services they choose to zero rate.
- scorpion032 11y agoIf I am a startup, I should request Facebook and Google to consider my portal as a basic service and allow millions to use it for free and they know of all my traffic all the time. That's not the internet I know and wouldn't serve anything but the self serving interests of these conglomerates.
- atnixxin 11y agonope. then both would be gatekeepers for their own. even if you disagree with this, the carriers are still playing gatekeeper by zero rating services they choose to zero rate.
- dangerpowpow 11y agojust waiting for facebook stocks to crash
- jace 11y agoWall Street certainly has their hopes up: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/facebooks-fb-free-basics-drive-gains-support-in-india-cm563925 http://www.nasdaq.com/article/facebooks-fb-free-basics-drive... http://www.thestreet.com/story/13419399/1/will-facebook-fb-stock-get-a-lift-from-receiving-support-for-free-web-in-india.html http://www.thestreet.com/story/13419399/1/will-facebook-fb-s... Both articles fail to consider that the mood around Facebook in India is extremely negative, with widespread sentiment of them being a bully that doesn't mind destroying net neutrality for their own selfish goals.
- enig_matic7 11y agoDoes anyone know what's in it for Reliance when they offer Free Basics?
- dingo_bat 11y agoAttracting non-data users, and hoping they will start paying if they like it.
- scorpion032 11y agoReliance anyway would have had to pay for marketing, and Facebook provides them that. So they divert their marketing budget to provide some free data to users as free basics. It's effectively bartering marketing and data costs. Stakes for Facebook in it are high, so I wouldn't be surprised if they even paid for all of the data of the users.
- ocean3 11y agoIf FreeBasics get through then reliance could package others like Youtube package, netflix package, full speed package etc.
- tobz 11y agoI just don't get this. Maybe I haven't read deeply enough, but... - what is preventing the companies signed on to the Free Basics platform from being accessible in India? is it technical? political? - what does Free Basics actually provide if not financial support to end users or carriers for now letting people access these sites? On its face, it looks as is Free Basics is some sort of strong arm technique to get carriers to allow access to particular sites (but are those site actually blocked?) so that Facebook can reap the karma of being the one to spearhead such a change.
- rubberstamp 11y agofree basics is a relaunched facebook service which was initially named internet.org Sites which wants to be part of free basics will have to get facebooks approval, there by making facebook the gatekeeper. Those sites which get approved can be accessed through free basics, and will have all the traffic go through facebook(lovely, isn't it?). Also the traffic is insecure.
- chdir 11y agoAnd they are tricking their users into gathering support for their sinister plans: "Facebook launched a print and digital media campaign [...] asking users to give a missed call, automatically sending a message to the regulator in support of Free Basics." i.e. A lot of those who gave a missed call ended up sending a message to TRAI, likely without their knowledge. Source : http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/start-up-india-turns-the-heat-on-facebook-free-basics-115122300056_1.html http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/start-up-...
- jlaprise 11y agoIt's much easier to persuade people with Internet access that net neutrality is good than those without access for whom it's mostly meaningless. Indian Internet penetration ~20% with 1B offline. Reverse those figures and consider how easy the argument and powerful the voice for net neutrality. The long view: strategy, not tactics. As for monopoly fears, well, remember MySpace and AOL? Internet monopolies have so far not been very durable. Technology changes rapidly and organizations frequently can't keep up (remember Bill Gates's infamous Internet letter?). I'd add that Facebook currently has ~1.5B users globally. Can they keep up structurally by adding another 1B? That's an open question.
- known 11y agoIt's illegal as per https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_India