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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

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I do understand that most of these bodies are toothless but we do have a CCI. The parent comment mentioned that we don't have one and I thought I would mention the fact that we do. As we speak, the CCI seems to be probing Indian telecoms. http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/cc... I'm not in favor of zero rating or violations of net neutrality as we know it. Disclosure : I'm a passive member of t…

These commissions are set up here, only after someone from a global body like UN, World Bank, IMF etc complains about their absence.

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

#162
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Btw, this was Zuckerburg's response when posed this question: https://i.imgur.com/PAwf6e3.png "Some connectivity is better than no connectivity, hence the violation of NN is justified" That is not a literal quote. Here is the actual quote from that image - "For people who are not on the internet though, having some connectivity and some ability to share is always much better than no ability to connect and share at…

My bad, I paraphrased the implications of the comment.

Presenting it as a direct quote is intellectually dishonest. Please don't use that kind of manipulation here, even if you think your cause warrants it.

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

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bad, I paraphrased the implications of the comment.

Presenting it as a direct quote is intellectually dishonest. Please don't use that kind of manipulation here, even if you think your cause warrants it.

In case you didn't notice, I also pasted the exact statement he gave as a screenshot. I only see an honest mistake (which was really just having the quotes around the thing -- I can't edit it otherwise I would have) instead of intellectual dishonesty. But thanks for the lesson.

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

#164
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The precedent already exists, at least here in Australia. Luckily it hasn't caused too many problems thus far, but whether that is merely an outlier remains to be seen.

Aren't video games really expensive there for no reason?

Video Games, Songs on iTunes, Internet, Phone Services... The list goes on, pretty much everything is expensive over here, even digital products with zero shipping or handling costs are triple or more the price in the US. For example I pay $70/month for 200GB of 'broadband' that peaks at 500kb/s and is totally incapable of streaming video. My mobile phone costs $95/month and I get 5GB of data.

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

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presenting it as a direct quote is intellectually dishonest. Please don't use that kind of manipulation here, even if you think your cause warrants it.

In case you didn't notice, I also pasted the exact statement he gave as a screenshot. I only see an honest mistake (which was really just having the quotes around the thing -- I can't edit it otherwise I would have) instead of intellectual dishonesty. But thanks for the lesson.

I was a little hasty jumping on your previous post. Thanks for the clarification.

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

#166
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better no internet than facebook? Sounds cynic.

Better just internet. It's like McDonald's building "free" roads that you can use to reach McDonald's, but if you want to go anywhere else you have to pay tolls. It is unbelievably self-serving and for Zuckerburg to dissemble on that point is wildly disingenuous. "Well, at least they can reach McDonald's" is not a good argument against just building roads and letting people drive wherever.

To me it sounds like McDonalds sending out a free shuttle bus to pick you up, but the shuttle only takes you to McDonalds (and not Wendy's or whatever). This actually exists with things like free hotel airport shuttles.

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

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a bigger picture you're not aware of that is in play here. Zuckerberg is providing free internet to millions.

There are ways to provide free internet to millions, while NOT compromising on neutrality or providing convenient network leverage to Facebook and Reliance to pick winners. How is X megabytes / month for free but with ads (this is network neutral) not better than Internet.org's current model? Why not let those millions decide which are the essential internet services for them ? Do the poor millions don't deserve choi…

> with ads

Why ads? Facebook would be providing internet.org for free, right? If the goal is getting more people on the internet, then internet.org could provide unfettered access to the internet and still reach their goal. However, if the aim is to get more people on their platform and increase Facebook's bottom line, then the goal is about manipulating one of the most disenfranchised people.

A way out for the zero rated schemes and internet.org is to sponsor bandwidth for the end user. The telecom service providers could offer 100mb per month free to the end users and bill internet.org et al for the service.

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

#169

One thing to note is that there's no EFF like organisation and this is mostly done by volunteers [1]. This has also been largest response to any consultation by Indian government having received 600K+ responses through campaign sites[2][3]. Previous highest was 20000 mails in 1999. [1]: Disclaimer: I am associated and helping the group. [2]: http://savetheinternet.in/ People can submit response here. [3]: http://netn…

Thank you Ishan!

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

#170
post #153

Internet.org is offering a free service to people who would otherwise have no access to the Internet. Net neutrality on a free service in a developing country is an entirely different issue than net neutrality in developed countries with high Internet access rates. I see similarities between this and GMO in developing countries, where rich, well fed people in developed countries oppose gmo in countries that can't fee…

While I think open access to the Internet probably should probably be considered a human right, it's not on the same tier in Maslow's pyramid as the right to not starve. As for opposing GMOs -- one needs to consider why certain countries "can't feed themselves", and if maybe food cartels might have something to do with it. For the record, I'm deeply sceptical to GMOs for two reasons: 1) I don't think allowing patent…

I think you're going on an irrelevant tangent with GMOs; the OP simply used the argument as a comparison not to prop up a soapbox for you to recite your GMO views.
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