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Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

bbc.com

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Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#31

Post by ShirsenduK »

spenvo wrote: post #5

- HTTPS is a premium feature not included in Internet.org's package... - Internet services/sites are whitelisted - essentially by Facebook. - ISP tracking is baked into consumers' access. (Like Verizon's SuperCookies, which have just been rolled back for US consumers.) - Select developers get to develop for the web ... but based off permission from higher ups. Because we all trust Facebook as a caretaker of a dev pla…

Ain't Facebook HTTPS by default? I guess the less privileged get no commitment to security from Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/a-continued-commitme...

If they say its because India has more feature phones; someone must be screwing up with the numbers.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#32

Post by diminoten3 »

yarrel wrote: post #29
diminoten2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would literally go to these people and tell them they are going to continue to not have any way of communicating with one another or others throughout the world because what they're being offered isn't the "real" Internet? You would tell them they must continue to live isolated from one another and the rest of the world? You'd deny them access to the single greatest invention humanity has ever come up with bec…

But this isn't access to the single greatest invention humanity has ever come up with. It's a brand that takes its name and applies it to a surveillance monopoly. It's internet.org that's denying people access to the Internet, not people pointing this fact out.

Internet.org is a set of interconnected computers. You want to get political and philosophical about what is and isn't the Internet, but Mumtaz in Bangalore wants to send $5 to his wife, and doesn't get to do that unless internet.org exists.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#33

Post by Dylan16807 »

diminoten3 wrote: post #32
yarrel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this isn't access to the single greatest invention humanity has ever come up with. It's a brand that takes its name and applies it to a surveillance monopoly. It's internet.org that's denying people access to the Internet, not people pointing this fact out.

Internet.org is a set of interconnected computers. You want to get political and philosophical about what is and isn't the Internet, but Mumtaz in Bangalore wants to send $5 to his wife, and doesn't get to do that unless internet.org exists.

> a set of interconnected computers

That just makes it a network.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#34

Post by nitrogen »

diminoten2 wrote: post #25
eropple wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are alternatives. Look at Google Loon.

There are not alternatives. I recommend you look at Google Loon before citing it as an actively running alternative in India. For the people who use Internet.org, there are literally no other ways to get online.

The problem with internet.org is it redefines "Internet" and "online" to mean "Facebook" and "Facebook". That is not the Internet, and the only thing truly "online" about it is the totally unencrypted and tracked browsing habits of the people. No number of token good-will sites or pay-to-play business sites will ever make this initiative the "Internet", and the wall of global segregation grows ever higher.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#35

Post by cazum »

diminoten2 wrote: post #20
cazum wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be an All Or Nothing situation. Nobody has asserted that nobody should ever provide limited internet access to developing countries. It's just that Facebooks attempt have some very serious, and potentially malicious problems, which have been stated in this thread.

It is an all or nothing situation. You're asserting that you would take away internet.org. Since there is no alternative, that would leave the folks who must use internet.org with nothing . I apologize for the account swapping -- HN decided I was commenting too much on my other account, and I wanted to continue our discussion while it was still fresh in both our minds.

>It is an all or nothing situation

No, it's not. A service could exist that provides this functionality without the problems Facebook has created.

>You're asserting that you would take away internet.org

Please find where I said this.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#36

Post by aravindet »

> But Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg said it was "not sustainable to offer the whole internet for free".

Quite plainly, that's false. 1Mb of an internet.org site costs operators exactly the same to carry as 1Mb of some other website.

Operators obviously have some average Mbs/user/month figure that they're willing to bundle as internet.org, expecting to recover this from the people who upgrade to a full internet plan. Whatever this number is, users can also be limited to this with a data cap, allowing them to There would then be no net neutrality concerns at all.

Facebook could continue to have the internet.org app, their proxy server, and they could be displayed as a default to the people on this plan. Those users would prefer them (they would really need to conserve data). It could even warn people about data consumption when they open the browser, as long as there is an option to click through. None of those things violate net neutrality, and they will keep 99% of users within the internet.org app.

Facebook has never said why they cannot do this, other than offering hand-wavy "poor people don't understand data caps because they don't know what megabytes are". This is false. Anyone who has a prepaid phone connection in, say, India understands how to navigate the bewildering complexity of phone plans (pay Rs. 30 to decrease the cost of calls by 50% between 10pm and 6am for 30 days). As long as there is some way for users to check how many MBs they have left, they will be fine.

I suspect that the real reason facebook opposes this is that they want to use their position as gatekeeper to shut out competition. If these "starter internet plans" operated as I described, Google will soon have its own "Google+ zero" built into Android.

Thanks to Android, Google enjoys unassailable market power as a gatekeeper on the device. The only way facebook can close that gap is by becoming the gatekeeper at the network level, which requires that net neutrality be subverted.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#37

Post by Quanticles »

_greim_ wrote: post #22

> But Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg said it was "not sustainable to offer the whole internet for free". I think that's exactly what they should do, if they're serious about this: just find a way to offer everyone the whole internet for free. If something must be compromised, then compromise speed, not access to sites. Sites that want to reach poor people would just have to practice draconian bandwidth discipline…

Everyone is complaining - why don't other people offer free internet? Just do it yourself

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#38

Post by aravindet »

wnevets wrote: post #28

is bad internet really worse than no internet? Sounds like people are letting perfect getting in the way of good enough.

It isn't bad Internet. It is a proprietary network like AOL and CompuServe, and not the Internet at all. The name is intentionally misleading.

Allowing such proprietary networks to run over public radio spectrum causes harm to the real internet - and not just by slowing it down and making it more expensive.

The main long-term harm is the stifling effect on innovation, especially in businesses that rely on network effects: Even if you are a regular internet user, but some of your friends are on internet.org, you can only use communication, collaboration or social networking apps that are on internet.org. Even in other categories of apps, you might only hear about those that are on internet.org.

This means that we will move from an economy where end users decide which apps get popular, to one where facebook picks the winners.

This is scary.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#39

Post by mkagenius »

wnevets wrote: post #28

is bad internet really worse than no internet? Sounds like people are letting perfect getting in the way of good enough.

yeah, its kind of people stopping Bill Gates to help with Polio eradication since he is not helping with rest of the diseases. (Apparently nobody is doing that, thank god.)

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#40

Post by wnevets »

aravindet wrote: post #38
wnevets wrote: post #28

is bad internet really worse than no internet? Sounds like people are letting perfect getting in the way of good enough.

It isn't bad Internet. It is a proprietary network like AOL and CompuServe, and not the Internet at all. The name is intentionally misleading. Allowing such proprietary networks to run over public radio spectrum causes harm to the real internet - and not just by slowing it down and making it more expensive. The main long-term harm is the stifling effect on innovation, especially in businesses that rely on network eff…

If the real internet is inherently better than this aol 2.0, shouldn't simple market forces choose the internet as the winner?
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