Facebook, Reliance Communications Cock a Snook at Net Neutrality

TM Arun Kumar is Consulting Editor at IDG Media.

Hats off to Reliance Communications and Facebook for trying to sugarcoat a blatantly biased and anti-net neutrality move as a socially responsible initiative. And, what a way to put a marketing – or should we say a social responsibility – spin to the launch Internet.org services in the country by calling it as a ground breaking partnership to offer free data access to useful websites to customers that will bridge the digital divide and strengthen the society. Geez, we never knew that these companies were so charitable and really cared so much about bridging the digital divide and increasing Internet penetration in India.

For those unaware of the developments, Reliance Communications recently announced a partnership with Facebook to offer the latter’s Internet.org services to its customers at no extra cost. Through this, Reliance Communications’ customers will be able to access certain specific sites such as Wikipedia, Microsoft’s search engine Bing, travel site Cleartrip, and certain news sites like BBC, Times of India, NDTV, etc, on the Internet without incurring any data charges.

No data charges for accessing certain sites sounds good, doesn’t it? But, what this move also means is that Reliance Communications and Facebook are discriminating against the vast majority of the content and applications available on the Internet, which goes against the principles of net neutrality.

So, what’s this net neutrality? For the uninitiated, Wikipedia explains net neutrality (also sometimes referred to as network neutrality, Internet neutrality or net equality) as “The principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication.”

This means that ISPs can’t charge differently for accessing different sites or accessing different types of data; the ISP shouldn’t speed up or slow down certain sites; and the cost of access should be the same across all sites.

This tie-up between Facebook and Reliance Communications violates one of the fundamental principles of net neutrality – the cost of access should be the same for all sites on the Internet. By, making the cost of access zero for some apps and sites, the two are discriminating against the other sites that compete with these selected sites. So, if you are searching on Bing, its free, but you have to pay to access Google. Similarly, if you book a ticket using Cleartrip, there are no data charges, but charges will apply if you decide to choose Makemytrip instead. If this is not discriminatory, what is?

If Reliance Communications was really interested in bridging the digital divide and increasing Internet penetration in the country, why not make data charges zero on its network up to a certain limit? Why limit it to only a handful of sites?

Facebook, which in many ways owes its own growth to the neutral nature of the Internet, says, “This is a big step forward in our efforts to connect everyone in India to the Internet, and to help people discover new tools and information that can create more jobs and opportunities.” What a load of bull***t. Wonder if Facebook really believes in what it says.

This is not the first time that carriers and ISPs have tried to disregard net neutrality. A couple of months ago, in December 2014, Airtel announced that VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) will be charged at standard data rates for services like Skype, Viber, etc. The company faced such a violent backlash on the social media that it was forced to quickly withdraw that proposal.

And as for sites like Cleartrip, Bing, BBC News, Wikipedia, etc, which can be accessed free of charge over the Reliance Communications’ network, do they stand for net neutrality? If they do, its time to speak up.