[jace]

It'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

[rubberstamp]

I fail to understand how its digital equality. I don't wanna give them control over Internet too. Hope trai shows them the door

[rohmish]

The people who run the regulatory body, they will pass this with quite a strong majority

[dingo_bat]

Probably an argument can be made that net-neutrality and zero-rating are different. For example, net-neutrality can include exemptions to free services which grant access to only certain websites. IMO, the bigger problem is differential-pricing, not free stuff. Once, I pay for internet access, I should get access to everything. But any company is allowed to give access to certain websites, free of cost.

[Drakim]

The danger lies in that they can offer free access to their own search engine, video sharing site, email, social network, and so on. And then set a really high price for regular traffic, making watching video outside their own video sharing site unrealistic. If you have no other internet providers in your area (or if all two/three of them do this trick) then you effectively don't have a free and open internet anymore.

[akerro]

>stands strongly in favour of net neutrality in the US

Could you provide some sources?

[jace]

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/08/google-fac...

http://mashable.com/2014/05/08/fcc-letter-net-neutrality/#as...

[anivar]

The FCC letter signed by facebook said

1. “The open architecture of the Internet creates an innovation-without-permission ecosystem. Consumers (and consumers alone) decide the winners and losers on the open Internet.”

2. The brief also describes the dangers of a “walled garden” with a “pre-selected lineup.”

3. “Such an outcome would undo much of the progress of the last two decades. Consumers would lose the ability to choose freely among competitive services and sources of information. It would also significantly decrease the rewards edge providers could realize from innovating, further decreasing consumer choice.”

4. It would also significantly decrease the rewards edge providers could realize from innovating, further decreasing consumer choice.”

Free Basics contradict all these .

[ikeboy]

None of that is against zero-rating. They specifically mention paid prioritization, which means the data is prioritized, while zero-rating is a billing practice.

[nileshtrivedi]

The fundamental principle makes this clear: Is the ISP providing competitive advantage to some apps/services/websites, either through pricing or QoS? Zero-rating does violate this.

[ikeboy]

But that's not the fundamental principle they advocate for.

The letter mentions "to discriminate both technically and financially against Internet companies and to impose new tolls on them."

No technical limitations are placed on internet companies with free basics, they just cost more to the consumer. And as the company isn't charged more to be on free basics, there isn't financial discrimination against the company.

Strictly speaking, that doesn't prohibit zero rating.

I'd be more interested to see a response to the studies that Facebook quoted. Are they taken out of context? If not, they do seem to agree that free basics would help.

[bugger_guy]

why would they do that? isnt this public and wouldnt it be against what they stand for?? are u sure about what u say??

[nileshtrivedi]

OP 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.