In the year since Facebook introduced its Internet.org app to help bring the world’s unconnected people online, the effort has attracted both criticism and a certain level of success. With the first anniversary of the app arriving this week, Facebook and its technology partners have launched a portal to make it easier for new mobile partners around the world to sign up for the program.
Launched in Zambia last July, the Internet.org app provided Airtel customers in that country with free basic services, including access to just over a dozen Web sites such as AccuWeather, Facebook, Google Search, MAMA (the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action) and Wikipedia. In partnership with more than a dozen other mobile operators, the availability of the Internet.org app has since expanded to more than nine million people in 17 countries.
Facebook said the app has helped local operators build their markets by bringing on new users, about half of whom have gone on to sign up for paid Internet services. However, the initiative has also been criticized — especially in India — as a Facebook-centric Web service that violates Net neutrality because it provides zero-rating, or free, access to only a handful of online sites.
‘Ready To Scale Services’
“By providing people with access to free basic services through Internet.org, our goal was to bring more people online and help them discover the value of the Internet — and it’s working,” Facebook said this week in a blog post on its news site. “As we approach year two, we’ve taken everything we’ve learned from working closely with our partners and are now ready to scale Internet.org free basic services.”
To help with that goal, Facebook and its Internet.org partners have launched a portal to help mobile operators sign up for the service more easily. Among other resources, the portal provides technical tools and best practices aimed at improving the sign-up and launch process for new operator services, Facebook said.
“Our goal is to work with as many mobile operators and developers as possible to extend the benefits of connectivity to diverse, local communities around the world,” Facebook said in the blog post. Facebook’s partners in the Internet.org program include Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera, Samsung, Nokia and Qualcomm.
‘Gatekeeping Should Be Discouraged’
In just the last month, Facebook said people using the app have “accessed health services more than a million times, which speaks to the ultimate goal of Internet.org — helping to make an impact in people’s lives.”
However, the app has also been criticized as a way for Facebook to establish a proprietary hold among the more than 4 billion people on the planet who still lack Internet access.
A recent report from a committee appointed by India’s Department of Telecommunications, for instance, concluded that collaborations between telecom service providers and content providers “that enable such [a] gatekeeping role to be played by any entity should be actively discouraged.”
The committee’s report said that, if need be, the government and telecom regulator might need to “step in to restore balance to ensure that the Internet continues to remain an open and neutral platform for expression and innovation.”
In response to such criticism, Internet.org introduced an open platform in May to enable developers to more easily create services that integrate with the app. The platform requires users to ensure that any services working with the Internet.org app allow people to explore the entire Internet, use data efficiently and meet technical specifications for bandwidth optimization.
