Facebook opens Internet.org to all developers in India, with riders

Mark Zuckerberg has decided to loosen several conditions related to the Facebook's free internet service in India following the furore over net neutrality (See: Net neutrality: Facebook's Internet.org faces trouble in India).

Internet.org will continue to operate from India, but as an 'open' platform for all.

According to Facebook, any website could be accessed free via the service, but there are rules and regulations for participation including support to websites that ditch HTTPS, JavaScript and several other things.

The social network has listed down the guidelines that websites accessing Internet.org would need to follow:

1. Explore the entire Internet

Facebook writes that the Internet.org platform would give people valuable free services allowing them 'to discover the entire wealth of online services and, ultimately become paying users of the internet'.

Participants therefore, 'should encourage the exploration of the broader internet wherever possible'.

However, it has not clearly spelt out what exactly is expected from participating websites to encourage it.

2. Participation bars

Websites that require high-bandwidth would not be able to participate the Internet.org service.

Further services with VoIP, video, file transfer, high resolution photos, or high volume of photos cannot be part of the service.

''Operators have made significant economic investments to bring the internet to people globally, and Internet.org needs to be sustainable for operators so that they can continue to invest in the infrastructure to maintain, improve and expand their networks,'' Facebook explained.

Facebook offers free mobile internet access to people in India, Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia, Ghana, and Zambia – provided they have a phone that could run the Opera web browser, connect to a mobile data network, and they stuck to 38 selected websites – which ranged from Facebook and Wikipedia to health-information sites as also a Reuters feed of farm prices. People visiting sites via Internet.org would incur no cost on their mobile data use.

According to commentators though this might sound good, it was also anti-competitive and flew smack in the face of the principle of net neutrality, which Facebook supported to the hilt last May.

A web startup in India that was not on the  internet.org list would have little to no hope of getting off the ground against a rival that is, they add.