Indian startups, academicians join the chorus against Facebook's Free Basics

Indian students gather for a protest against Free Basics in Hyderabad, on Dec. 29.

Image: Mahesh Kumar A/Associated Press

In light of the ongoing debate over Facebook's Free Basics platform, nine major Indian startups have written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), voicing their concern over zero rating and Internet gate-keepers. They were joined by nearly 80 Indian academicians who released a statement on the flaws in Free Basics. Taking note, TRAI has extended its deadline for comments on differential data pricing to Jan. 7.

The TRAI petition was sent by entrepreneurs from prominent startups such as Zomato, Paytm, TrulyMadly, GoQii, Mouthshut, Flipclass, Teesort, SVG Media and Tevis Learning, in response to TRAI's consultation paper on differential pricing for data services.
"The practice of differential pricing of data services results in skewing the dynamics of the Internet with telecom service providers and a few players like Facebook with its Free Basics platform acting as gate-keepers. Differential pricing of data services including practices like zero rating of selected content and applications leads to a tiered Internet instead of a single open Internet. This affects the ability of new players to compete in the market with the established corporations," the letter states.
"At this stage, there is no reason to create a digital divide by offering a walled garden of limited services in the name of providing access to the poor," it concludes.

While Facebook has undertaken an advertising blitz in India, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also called various CEOs, such as Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma to garner support. Zuckerberg also penned an editorial in a major Indian daily, explaining the company's stand on Free Basics.
Simultaneously, around 80 faculty members of Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science also brought out a statement criticising Free Basics, which they will submit to TRAI today. It argues that the programme is flawed because it violates net neutrality and "would invariably lead to deep consequences of people's freedom to access and use information."
"Allowing a private entity to define for Indian Internet users what is “basic”, to control what content costs how much, and to have access to the personal content created and used by millions of Indians is a lethal combination which will lead to total lack of freedom on how Indians can use their own public utility, the Internet," it states.