Facebook’s Free Basics Service Shut Down In Egypt

Facebook’s “Free Basics” internet program, which had been providing free basic Internet services to more than three million Egyptians, was shut down on Wednesday reported the Associated Press.

Social networking giant Facebook’s free basics initiative service that provides limited free Internet access was suspended in Egypt after a permit required from the government was not renewed.

R.S. Sharma, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, said the authority has got about 1.82 million responses till now out of which around 890,000 were through phone and 544,000 through Facebook mail supporting Free Basics. “Therefore, it has become hard for us to connect these answers to this paper”, Sharma said.

“This isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests – there aren’t even any ads in the version of Facebook in Free Basics”.

Despite rebranding its free Internet.org “walled garden” of apps plan in India under the new name of “Free Basics”, Facebook remains in direct violation of an open Internet.

“This is just a smart customer acquisition or a user acquisition strategy from Facebook”, Pahwa said.

Critics argue that it will create a tiered system of information, where the wealthy can pay for full access to the internet as a whole, while the poor will be restricted to the sites that Free Basics allows.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has opposed differential pricing for data services on the grounds that it violates the principles of net neutrality.

That criticism prompted Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to defend Internet.org’s efforts on his personal Facebook page and the Times of India’s website. TRAI is supposed to publish a paper on net neutrality and was welcoming user comments, with the deadline originally supposed to end on the 30th of December.

Earlier this month, telecom regulator Trai has asked Reliance Communications to keep services of Facebook’s free Internet platform, Free Basics, in abeyance, till the issue on differential pricing is sorted out.

Free Basics against net neutrality? It said the service provided Internet access to more than a million people who were not previously connected.