[scorpion032]

Would 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]

Facebook would only be a gatekeeper in India if no one else decides to offer a competing service. Google plans to.

[scorpion032]

If 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]

nope. 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.