India's Net Neutrality Campaign Picks Up Steam, Sites Withdraw From Internet.org 75
First time accepted submitter arvin (916235) writes The Huffington Post reports on prominent Indian websites withdrawing from Facebook's internet.org initiative. The net neutrality debate in the country has focused on zero-rating, where ISPs offer a free data plan which provides access to a set of websites that pay to be included. Internet.org provides free access to Facebook, Bing, Wikipedia and a few other websites. Another similar service, Airtel Zero, lost its flagship partner as e-commerce company Flipkart withdrew following a social media backlash.
Net neutrality activists believe that as these plans proliferate, access to the open internet will become extremely expensive or unavailable, innovation will slow as for startups are prevented from reaching the market, and the competitive consumer ISP market will be replaced with a cartel negotiating against internet companies. In a campaign similar to that in the US, over 630,000 Indians sent responses to their regulator through the website savetheinternet.in.
Net neutrality activists believe that as these plans proliferate, access to the open internet will become extremely expensive or unavailable, innovation will slow as for startups are prevented from reaching the market, and the competitive consumer ISP market will be replaced with a cartel negotiating against internet companies. In a campaign similar to that in the US, over 630,000 Indians sent responses to their regulator through the website savetheinternet.in.
this world-wide thing (Score:1)
internet.org - another sign that FB has taken over (Score:2, Interesting)
If my memory still serves me correctly, the domain 'internet.org' used to belong to an independent organization which had nothing to do with fb
Take a look at archive.org copy of internet.org - https://web.archive.org/web/19... [archive.org]
The fact that the domain has been taken over by fb and is being used by fb to co-op (and con) people whom still without stable connection to the Net is that fb has proven itself to be a not-so-nice entity
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I really like their mention of /.
You want the latest news that matters go to Slashdot. Good marketers can only hope for a favorable mention. Unfavorable may literally put you out
Sounds like internet.org is offering (Score:2, Interesting)
a free room in a spacious jail with lots of useful amenities.
On the plus side, I can see how it would be appealing to people without a lot of money who only care about the services offered.
On the minus side, it's still a jail.
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> On the plus side, I can see how it would be appealing to people without a lot of money who can't afford internet any other way.
There, fixed that for you.
I get the problem, but I'm sure the people who can't afford any sort of connection are a bit disappointed right now.
Re:Sounds like internet.org is offering (Score:5, Informative)
Most people who can't afford Internet in the third world tend to have much more pressing issues like being unable to feed themselves.
I live in a developing country, roughly on par with India - middle income by global standards, at about 7K per family per year. Infrastructure well on its way to being developed, but still straining to cope, widespread poverty. You get the picture.
You might be surprised about how far the internet can penetrate. In the squatter areas families live on subsistence income and shanty housing - heavy crowding, dirt floor kitchen, ground-water wells (in close proximity to the pit latrine). Yet cellphone coverage is still good, and smartphone ownership is common. Although most days involve hand-to-mouth living, smartphone is a first choice luxury item when people come by a little extra money, especially with family breadwinners working abroad. These folks are all on pre-paid plans, with a typical up-front purchase being about 0.45 USD of credit for for or 5 days. From this, via SMS command messages, eg 'SURF PLUS NOW' its possible to allocate 0.11 worth of internet surfing, saving the rest for SMS messages, and a little talk-time. With many subscribers, this is good business for the telephone companies.
Another popular service offered by cell-phone companies is the ability to send micro-payments via text message. So in an unexpected emergency like an illness or injury, disbursed family members can text in money to cover costs - an informal family insurance system. As the middle-class base expands, perhaps we'll see more business models based on this kind of thing in future. (Bill Gates certainly thinks so).
NB, the term '3rd world' remains popular, but is somewhat antiquated. Technically it means:
. . . though is popularly take to mean 'poor' & and 'under-developed'.
Re:who can't afford internet any other way (Score:1)
Don't gimme that liberal political crap. They can always sell a kidney or their liver.
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Apple seems to offer quite a spacious jail with lots of useful apps/amenities.
They also seem to charge more for the experience.
If you can offer an attractive cage at a discount, maybe no one will care they are in a white-washed cage instead of a gilded cage...
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Apple seems to offer quite a spacious jail with lots of useful apps/amenities.
No Apple device restricts which websites a user can visit.
Limitations of Safari for iOS (Score:2)
No Apple device restricts which websites a user can visit.
Perhaps that depends on what you mean by "visit". Even if you exclude sites that rely on SWF or JAR components, it took until iOS 6 for Safari to support <input type="file">, and it took until iOS 8 for Safari to support WebGL outside vetted iAd modules. Until then, Apple was restricting users from visiting web sites that rely on those web platform features by restricting browsers on iOS from implementing them. And I'm under the impression that support for <input type="file"> is still woefully i
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Not supporting something is very different from intentionally blocking something. The former is a matter of time, money and/or simple ignorance of the requirements. The latter is intentionally malicious.
The difference really should be pretty obvious.
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Not supporting something is very different from intentionally blocking something.
Apple intentionally blocks third-party web browsers that are not just thin wrappers around Safari. Therefore, features that Safari doesn't support and which third parties could have implemented but for this blocking are features that Apple intentionally blocks.
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Which is among the many reasons I refuse to use Apple products, but there's still a distinction between the levels of "Safari doesn't support it" vs "You must use Safari in some manner."
Of course if its "Safari doesn't support it specifically because we want to block sites that use it" then you're getting into the territory of mixing the two issues. But as long as Safari's lack of support is simply due to lack of time/money/motivation, you can't really associate maliciousness with that particular aspect of
Predates the iPhone (Score:2)
<input type="file"> is an HTML standard that has been around longer than the iPhone.
Safari wrappers (Score:2)
but you can install other browsers on an iphone
Technically correct, but not helpfully correct. Browsers other than Safari are wrappers around WebKit for iOS, and they share the same limitations as Safari. Porting any rendering engine other than WebKit for iOS is both forbidden by the App Store Review Guidelines and technically blocked by the strict W^X policy of the iOS executable loader.
The sites can choose to have ugly html fallbacks
If you have created a document in an app, how do you upload a document to an "ugly HTML fallback" when the only approved HTML rendering engine refuses to provide an upl
Referring to iOS, not OS X (Score:2)
Which jail is that? I'm writing this on a Mac
Unlike Macs, iPhones ship with cellular radios. From the article: "Internet.org is a partnership the partnership between Facebook and seven mobile phone companies" (my emphasis). This makes me think Anonymous Coward had iOS in mind, not OS X. And unlike OS X, iOS has a jail.
Is it really better to withhold internet? (Score:1)
There are lots of people in India too poor to pay for internet, that this system could link them in.
Is it really worse for them to have a gated internet than no internet at all?
So what if "normal" internet becomes a little more expensive, that's fine when anyone can get limited access to the internet for free.
Re:Is it really better to let only wealthy in? (Score:3)
The problem with the "paid-by-advertising" model is the advertisers only want people with money. People who can't pay for internet access are "not in their demographic".
Anyone who prefers to view the internet as a wealth-enabling resource rather than a wealth-draining private hunting ground can see through this facade in an instant.
Your point is counter to what is offered (Score:2)
Advertisers value people, period. Even those with very little money... it's a different demographic, is all. The thing is people using free internet connections are not going to have that much money period so it simply does not match with your thought the advertisers on such a service will be expecting rich people on a limited free service.
Anyone who prefers to view the internet as a wealth-enabling resource
I do, which is why I'd prefer as many people to have internet access as possible - not hold it back
Hmmmmm ... (Score:2)
I think we both want the same thing but are making different presumptions. Here are mine:
The internet is a (social) failure unless everyone can use it.
Corporations only care about targeting high-value customers.
If the only form of $free internet access is corporate-advertising-backed, low-$ people will be left out.
In other words, we need a form of internet access that does not depend on corporations. Sounds rather like a utility. Not completely $free but with mandatory free outlets.
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If the only form of $free internet access is corporate-advertising-backed, low-$ people will be left out.
This conclusion is wrong. Poorer people tend to be far more likely to be suckered into scams, whether its due to general wealth mismanagement, poor education or what have you.
Its true that they won't likely be seeing ads for BMWs and Rolexes, but there will be no end of mortgage scams, pyramid schemes and similar cons that tend to preferentially target people who don't really understand how horribly low "get rich quick" (or even "get out of debt quick") scores on the probability meter.
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Not just that, but there's little evidence to suggest proper Internet access would even get more expensive. (At least for me, access to just one website is not "Internet access")
In fact, since this is a change in demand (not a change in quantity demanded), economics suggests the price should go down.
The only way it would go up is if it lures more people into buying Internet data plans... wouldn't that also be good?
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Yes because it would be a return to the old corrupt propaganda main stream media model. Pricing would not be what they claim but selective pricing would be the model. The insiders would get one price and the outsiders would get a price that they purposefully could not afford. Basically they want to keep the main stream media propaganda lies going and to do that, they need to silence the truth.
Basically the psychopaths are trying one bullshit propaganda method after another to get the lock in on pay to sp
You advocate more censorship than I (Score:2)
No internet is more censorship than some internet, no matter how you gate it. And people will always figure out some way to get to what they want even on a "limited" network connection...
In the ACTUAL example here, Facebook is part of this and you can find any viewpoint you like on Facebook.
It's all there (Score:2)
There are lots of porn stars [facebook.com] on Facebook.
And if you think you can't find racism on Facebook, you are an idiot.
Facebook does sensor SOME things, but not all the things. Like I said you can find any ideology on there you like.
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No internet is more censorship than some internet, no matter how you gate it.
I disagree that "no internet" is more censorship. The problem with censorship is that it distorts the appearance of reality. If you can read FOX news, but not MSNBC, then the TEA party look like rational people. If you censor news stories about drone strikes, then bloggers talking about children killed by drone strikes look like conspiracy nuts.
In the ACTUAL example here, Facebook is part of this and you can find any viewpoint you like on Facebook.
Maybe. As long as you don't violate their TOS. Same with wikipedia, as long as the content doesn't violate their community standards. They're still talking abo
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The fact is that the connection from the ISP to "the internet" is dirt cheap, it's the connection from you to the ISP that you're paying $40 for. Getting that connection to 40mbps is going to cost you that money whether your ISP forbids you to use it sometimes or not.
What we wanted our net neutrality to do, is to prevent ISPs from telling Netflix
It's in really populous countries like India ... (Score:2)
... where this question will be decided. If the f***books of the world succeed there they will know they can get away with it, and will double down their efforts.
looks like Indians are smarter than us (Score:3)
TMobile provides free streaming to websites such as Pandora without counting that data as part of your data plan (see [t-mobile.com]. This is being done for almost a year and no one is protesting.
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You pay for the data plan I assume in a T-mobile plan.
All they are doing is allowing more data for streaming for a website like pandora which might soak up a lot of peoples bandwidth.
They are not gatekeeping the rest of the internet and extorting money from web businesses.
T-mobile is simply offering more service in the form of an extension of bandwidth.
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How this is any different from any two companies having a mutual agreement for any other type of promotion? Or because this involves "the internet" does that somehow make this a new novel marketing idea worthy of a patent.
A friend just got a new natural gas furnace installed and received a free hookup for a natural gas BBQ. Should Kingsford charcoal be able to complain because the gas company, in an attempt to sell him one of their BBQs, gave him the extra hookup?
My bank card gives me points towards free
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I have 1GB of 4G-speed data with T-Mobile. I'm also a prolific streamer of Internet radio. For some parts of my work, it's required.
Now I get to run however much I like, wherever I am, and T-Mobile eats the costs, leaving bandwidth available for other, more important things.
What's there to protest?
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The problem with T-Mobile's policy is that it creates a barrier to market entry. If a new streaming service starts they have to come to T-Mo, hat in hand and ask for zero rating. If T-Mo says no, well, would you use a streaming service that eats your data allotment if you have other choices?
I use Spotify, but when looking at other services I specifically check if they're in T-Mobile's list
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You're talking to someone who runs a 24/7 Internet radio stream. Network, routing, copyright, artists, library, website, the whole shebang. It's really not that hard to sign on with their program. But even if it was...
The thing about their plan is it's a voluntary part of their billing. They're not throttling anyone, they're not prioritizing traffic or dropping packets based on the source or destination.
The only thing they're doing is footing the bill for shuttling data. Paying for someone else's bills is a
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Paying for someone else's bills is always welcome in my book
In antitrust circles, this is called 'dumping' and can have very bad effects on the health of the market.
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Charge too high and that's "gouging"
Charge too low and that's "dumping"
Charge the same as everyone else and that's "collusion"
Is there anything that's not antitrust?
Charging per GB is OK.
Charging per month, unlimited is OK.
Charging per GB except certain kinds of services... not OK?
Antitrust is completely irrelevant here.
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I run an Internet radio stream myself. I'm fully aware of T-Mobile's terms of the service, and they're not bad. But even if it was...
The thing about their plan is it's a voluntary part of their billing. They're not throttling anyone, they're not prioritizing traffic or dropping packets based on the source or destination.
There's no barrier to entry, it doesn't make it harder to get an Internet connection or start a new service.
(Centralized distributers like YouTube, Google Play, Twitch.tv -- they do. They co
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Bell up here in Canada just got slapped by the government for doing something similar.
Its definitely hard to toe the "stop giving things away for free" line, but business models like that are absolutely horrible for any vague semblance of a free market. If Pandora is effectively subsidized and thus essentially free to the end user, while Spotify is going to cost $20/gb or whatever the stupidly high rate is these days, guess which company isn't going to be able to compete for long?
Any government in the worl
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I'm failing to see how jumping immediately to having the government shut down a business deal between two companies is an aid to "free market" while allowing said companies from joining in a voluntary partnership is a violation of the same.
If you can show Verizon or Pandora lose money because of their partnership (effectively dumping their product to hurt competitors), or are blocking Spotify from forming a similar partnership with other companies then sure you have a case for government intervention. Othe
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or are blocking Spotify from forming a similar partnership
That's pretty much the catch right there. Spotify in particular is probably big enough to perhaps do something, but what about TinyIndieSite.com? On top of not being well known in the first place, they're also competing against a subsidized service.
And given how tied these services are to the phones they run on, not to mention the contracts that you usually have to enter in order to obtain the phone in the first place, means that you can't easily just "go to another company."
The only reason this isn't imm
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And why is it suddenly T-Mobile or Panora's job to help TinyIndieSite.com? Neither are doing anything to prevent the service from running they just aren't giving it any of the special benefits that these two companies negotiated between them. You can still order TinyIndieSite.com's service, you just have to use your data cap to use it on their network like every other service on the internet and if it's such a great service then either T-Mobile will make a deal with them or one of their competitors will.
C
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And why is it suddenly T-Mobile or Panora's job to help TinyIndieSite.com?
When did I say it was? I said the government should be preventing them from harming TinyIndieSite.com, with the additional (ok somewhat implied) restriction of unfairly.
Just because this is 'on the internet' doesn't make it anything special.
When did I say it did? I was talking about cell phones (or cable packages or other mono/duo/small ogliopolies.) T-Mobile takes Pandora. Verizon takes Spotify. Make your other matchups as you will. Where does TinyIndieSite.com fit in now? They don't have the clout to take on Pandora or Spotify..
If they were able to charge $1/mo for the
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By this logic no two companies can ever join in a beneficial partnership because every other company in a similar field isn't involved. Unless you're definition of 'harming' a competitor is doing a better job of marketing yourself to customers, I still can't really see the harm being done to tinyindiesite?
You still pay for your music service, you just don't get it applied to your data cap at a particular phone company. Yes, that allows Pandora users on T-Mobile to get more use of their phones/music but it
Fine. Destroy the net. (Score:1)
I'm obviously a grouchy old man, but if all these damn companies want to recreate the days of CompuServe and AOL, that's fine by me. At least back then the cost to access acted like an idiot filter -- not a perfect one, but better than nothing. In these days of September never ending, the idiots rule the roost, and the net is only good for confirming that humanity deserves to be exterminated.
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Isn't this the same as the now dead AOL? Didn't it fail because there was not enough demand for white-listed Internet?
In as much as AOL was an overgrown BBS that put out its own client software and eventually offered "the web" (AOL's terminology at the time, back in '94; "the web" "coming to AOL" was a big thing) and IP connectivity, soaring to epic heights of revenue and heady exponential trends extrapolated to infinity through the 90s resulting in AOL purchasing Time Warner with overinflated stock just as broadband started eating away at AOL's dialup empire followed quickly by the .com explosion, an order of magnitude dr
AOL Huffington Post (Score:2)
The Huffington Post reports on prominent Indian websites withdrawing from Facebook's internet.org initiative.
Isn't this the same as the now dead AOL?
Yes. AOL owns The Huffington Post.
Billing by bandwidth (Score:2)
Net Neutrality may have a very different effect on the consumer in a country that charges consumers for bandwidth used rather than bandwidth available. In the US consumers pay once for internet and then have access to all non-private services with no added cost. If you are charging consumers based on bandwidth actually used, there is probably a better argument for some variation in costs based on how much each slice of bandwidth costs.
Cellular is still billed by the bit (Score:2)
In the US consumers pay once for internet and then have access to all non-private services with no added cost.
Comcast (cable) caps at 300 GB per month. Exede (satellite) caps at 10 GB per month. Cellular Internet caps even lower. If you read the article, you'll discover that it is about cellular Internet.
Wikipedia Zero is free anyway to any provider (Score:2)
The suggestion that it takes anyone but the WMF to provide free access is a fallacy. Wikipedia Zero is free for any ISP who cares to provide it.