Chris O’brien in his article1 on Venturebeat quotes, “In the race between Google and Facebook over global connectivity, everyone is winning” but is this really true and if it is, at what cost?
Today, only 2.7 billion people out of 7 billion in the world have access to the internet. To find a solution to narrow this chasm and possibly in a profitable way, that is to expand their user base even further by vacuuming up the bottom of the pyramid, Google and Facebook are in a head to head competition to provide “free internet” (although Google makes it clear that it is aiming to provide only Google services) to the rest of the global population that lies in abyss. At face value, it appears as a very humane and selfless initiative to bring this percentage of population on par with the rest. It is also estimated by McKinsey that 21% of GDP growth is contributed by the internet in developed nations over the past five years. But to take a deeper look at how this affects the sanctity of the social construct that is established since the beginning of the world wide web, it is essential to understand two basic concepts – zero rated services and net neutrality.
Zero rated services – As per Wikipedia it “ is the practice of mobile network operators (MNO), mobile virtual network operators (MVNO), and Internet Service Providers (ISP) not to charge end customers for data used by specific applications or internet services through their network, in limited or metered data plans. It allows customers to use provider-selected content sources or data services like an app store, without worrying about bill shocks, which could otherwise occur if the same data was normally charged according to their data plans and volume caps.”
Net neutrality – “the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.”
Net neutrality keeps the internet free and open. Anyone can use any website at any time through any operator for any amount of time, express their opinions, host their services, and reach out to a wide audience for free. There is no unfair competition with tech giants over large pockets and good contacts. It basically allows people to connect and exchange information freely. It is the only place where everyone on this planet is equal. This is threatened by zero rating services.
Facebook, Google and Wikipedia are the pioneers (and hopefully the only ones) in launching zero rating services – internet.org, Google free zone and Wikipedia Zero in a number of developing countries. Chile, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Canada have prohibited zero rating while regulators in Germany, Austria and Norway publicly stated that zero-rating violates network neutrality2.
While Wikipedia and Google have openly expressed their intention to provide access to only their product/website for free to certain users and through only certain telecom operators, Facebook has disguised its intent and calls it internet.org. Facebook along with its partners decide, based on a set factors and limitations that will dictate what basic internet services are provided. In the whitepaper released by Facebook, Mark defines what these factors are – “Basic services need to be non-data-intensive, which means primarily text-based services and very simple apps like weather. Data-intensive experiences like video, streaming music, high resolution photos, websites with media and large files or app downloads consume the vast majority of all data. For perspective, all of the text in this document is less than 0.1MB and a 30 second video can easily be 50–100MB. Basic services also need to be tools that people use to discover other content”3. However it appears to be strongly biased as it does not include many widely used top websites such as Google and instead uses Bing, Naukri – one of the top job sites in India and instead uses Babajob etc. When Facebook and its partner telecom operators have such immense power to decide what services are introduced to millions of new users, giving an edge over their competitors to these basic services, its humanitarian concern seems feeble. While Facebook aims at increasing efficiency of mobile networks, data centers, data transmission and spectrum allocation in the locations where an already established infrastructure exists, Google with its Project Loon aims to reach unpenetrated remote locations by beaming them 3G signals with the help of high altitude balloons placed in stratosphere to create an aerial wireless network4.
While in some ways, these initiatives are good and benefit people, they must manipulate these initiatives to protect open and free internet. One of the ways to do so is by providing a data cap while allowing access to all the websites and services and give the power of choice to its users. There are other alternatives, I’m sure, but it’s only a matter of doing what’s right instead of what’s profitable.
As Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web said,
“In the particular case of somebody who’s offering … something which is branded internet, it’s not internet, then you just say no. No it isn’t free, no it isn’t in the public domain, there are other ways of reducing the price of internet connectivity and giving something … (only) giving people data connectivity to part of the network deliberately, I think is a step backwards.”
Sources:
1.http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/05/in-the-race-between-google-and-facebook-over-global-connectivity-everyone-is-winning/
2. http://concurrentmedia.com/2015/02/23/the-next-ott-battleground-zero-rating/
3. https://scontent-cdg2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t39.2365-6/12057105_1001874746531417_622371037_n.pdf
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Loon
5.http://www.expressinglife.in/2015/04/net-neutrality-raising-voice-for-free.html