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Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw

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Re: Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw

#71

Post by firasd »

belorn wrote: post #49
koolhead17 wrote: post #38

Happy that someone wrote about this. We don`t need Facebook's walled garden. It is surprising to see "Wikipedia" aka champion of free speech part of internet.org.

If a company wanted to provide aid and give away food, we don't claim that it is creating an unfair market for the local food industry. If Wikipedia want to give away free access to information, suddenly its an unfair advantage in the market of free information?

The difficulty in analogies like this (and other arguments against net neutrality, such as saying partnerships between Facebook and network companies are the equivalent of promotional marketing or bundling) is that controlling the availability of specific sites or apps on a network inherently introduces bias in the network. So this is like an organization that gives away food creating roads that only they and their partners can use, given a government license to build roads (the same way network companies have a government license to build on the wireless spectrum and other channels.)

Re: Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw

#72

Post by fsniper »

manish_gill wrote: post #28

After limited protest/outrage in communities like /r/india, the news finally hit big when a comedy group AIB decided to make a video explaining what Net Neutrality is: https://youtu.be/mfY1NKrzqi0 and then it finally hit mainstream media. Amid pressure from everywhere, Flipkart finally withdrew from the Airtel Zero deal which would have been a blow to Net Neutrality in India. Of course, next step was Internet.org and…

I was against this zero movement from the start. I'm really happy to see that it is started to be seen as anti-NN. Wishing for Turkey Operators to pull out too.

Re: Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw

#73

Post by jace »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #57
parennoob wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia run by the non-profit Wikimedia foundation, Facebook is an ad-serving, for-profit social network. So I would argue that Wikipedia is the perfect candidate for such a program, and Facebook the worst.

Yes, many people are arguing the same. But I don't think the conclusion is foregone. Wikimedia has been criticized as well: https://www.accessnow.org/blog/2014/08/08/wikipedia-zero-and...

Wikipedia's charter requires them to increase access to Wikipedia, so signing up for internet.org was the right thing to do as long as it is not illegal. Let's put them aside for now and focus on the others.

Re: Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw

#74

Post by keenerd »

belorn wrote: post #49
koolhead17 wrote: post #38

Happy that someone wrote about this. We don`t need Facebook's walled garden. It is surprising to see "Wikipedia" aka champion of free speech part of internet.org.

If a company wanted to provide aid and give away food, we don't claim that it is creating an unfair market for the local food industry. If Wikipedia want to give away free access to information, suddenly its an unfair advantage in the market of free information?

> If a company wanted to provide aid and give away food, we don't claim that it is creating an unfair market for the local food industry.

Actually some do claim that:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/world/americas/14iht-food....

edit: In case you are hit by the paywall,

> Charity finds that U.S. food aid for Africa hurts instead of helps, Celia W. Dugger, 2007-08-14

Re: Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw

#75

Post by rhino369 »

mkagenius wrote: post #36

Just trying to understand from the first principle: If ISPs doesn't charge for facebook usage, then who _actually_ pays? Someone has to...right? Just curious.

The ISP connecting to facebook may not have any marginal cost, and if there is a marginal cost is it very low. So nobody or the ISP.

Re: Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw

#78

Post by nileshtrivedi »

toxican wrote: post #69
manish_gill wrote: post #28

After limited protest/outrage in communities like /r/india, the news finally hit big when a comedy group AIB decided to make a video explaining what Net Neutrality is: https://youtu.be/mfY1NKrzqi0 and then it finally hit mainstream media. Amid pressure from everywhere, Flipkart finally withdrew from the Airtel Zero deal which would have been a blow to Net Neutrality in India. Of course, next step was Internet.org and…

That video is wonderful. Anyone know of a video that outlines the importance of net neutrality as it pertains to America? This video covers the core idea excellently, but some of the details are very specific to India and their struggle with neutrality. I'd love to have something to show people that think Neutrality is some government overstep. But I feel like they'd be too distracted by the fact that it's not specif…

Did you not see the John Oliver segment? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU

Re: Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw

#79

Post by nileshtrivedi »

hsod wrote: post #77

I'm all for net neutrality, but I wonder how the currently unconnected people who have a chance at free connectivity feel about this. My guess-- limited Internet access is preferable to no Internet access and ideological purity.

I can understand. The question then becomes (1) who decides what is included in "limited internet" and (2) who bears the costs?

For-profit company making these decisions on the basis of commercial arrangements will take away all the potential of the Internet as we know it. Would there have been a KhanAcademy if ComcastAcademy ("limited internet access") was offered "for free"?

Re: Blow to Internet.org as Indian Internet Companies Begin to Withdraw

#80

Post by kamikazi »

denzil_correa wrote: post #46
nileshtrivedi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of factors at play here. Till a few months ago, India didn't even have a competition commission. We have no anti-trust laws. You also have to understand the history of telecom in India, especially the Value-Added-Services on mobile. They killed startups ( http://rashmiranjanpadhy.com/2015/04/12/airtel-kills-startup... ), they activated services without users' consent and so on. Can you imagine how big this fraud…

India has a Competition Commission since 2002. http://www.cci.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view...

Denzil - we have bodies and committees for every thing but no action takes place. Our CCI is a joke. There is no anti-trust. And less said about our courts & justice system the better.

Just a small eg: Satyam chief, Ramalingam Raju, picked up the phone and gave himself in to SEBI (US version of SEC) confessing to financial fraud of INR 4000 crores+ massive job losses, massive losses/harakiri in pension/taxes owed to the govt (due to inflated employee #) to the extent of he had one of the big4 auditors in his pocket who signed over falsified bank balance statements. This resulted in govt having to take over the co and auctioning it out to TechMahindra. At the time Satyam was the #3 Software services company in India by sheer revenue and employee size. Raju gave detailed proofs of each of his wrongdoings ("when he could not ride this tiger anymore") and yet it took our courts 7 years + to impose a rap-on-knuckles 7 years of imprisonment and 5 crores of fines. An amount which he could've made bamboozled off in one day of stock manipulation on the exchanges.

So my point is it's one thing to have all these fancy bodies and titles and quite another to have them act on anything.

This recent action against zero-rated apps by one of our telcos, Airtel, is a heartening move which ofcourse morphed into heat brought upon FB's internet.org which is a bigger culprit on net neutrality front.

Way to go online activism in India! (Disclosure: I'm a member of the #SaveTheInternet volunteer group)

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