"Facebook expects partner services to be optimized for smartphones and feature phones, and be free from JavaScript or SSL/TLS/HTTPS elements"<p>No HTTPS? Really??
Better than their first attempt but still not the real thing. If you want to give internet for free to some people there are no alternatives than paying them a full blown data connection with no artificial limits.<p>I believe that my original comment of 2 weeks ago is still relevant:<p>"Dear Mark, this open-to-ISP initiative is one way to look at what you're doing. Another one is closed-to-most-of-the-Internet. Let's turn it into an open-to-all-Internet initiative (web sites, mail, etc - all protocols), with no other costs for service providers (web sites, etc) than the amount of money they're paying to get online right now. Then I'll believe you're really trying to help those poor people by giving them free access to the full Internet, not only to what you think they must be allowed to access. Forgive me if I'm skeptical about how unbiased you are about it. Thanks."<p>(Edit: typo)
I think despite all our criticisms (especially noting that we as a community are far more aware of the consequences of net neutrality), we are missing the big picture. There is no net neutrality without the net. The idea of bringing internet access worldwide is a noble one, and though there certainly might be problems that arise in the attempt to get there, the entire Internet.org project, in my opinion, is a step forward in some fashion. Consider additionally the intentions of the project. While corporations do need to be profitable, ultimately I have the impression that Mark Zuckerberg is one of the less soulless CEOs, and I like that of all the ways he could've attempted to make more money, he chose one that has great benefits for people.
If it's a choice between Wikipedia and Facebook, or nothing at all, telling poor Indians they should only be allowed to have the latter seems quite cruel.<p>Yes, it's unfortunate they can't be given the whole Internet, but the fact they can get anything at all should be celebrated.
> We’re building an open platform <i>and anyone who meets these guidelines will be able to participate</i>,<p>They are <i>anything</i> but open.<p>They have already proven that they only care about "open" to get some traction about their new platform; once they have many people using it, they will lock down the garden.<p>open-graph anyone?
This makes it seem more like a Internet.org is just a technical decision rather than Facebook trying to become the "new Internet" in emerging countries. However, I don't think this alleviates the net neutrality problems at all.<p>Too many types of Internet services are being excluded, which means it will inevitably create a "two-tier" Internet. There will be the 80-percenters in India who will only have access to "info sites" and then the 20-percenters who will be able do everything else. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if it was a <i>temporary</i> 10-year solution. But what if this becomes permanent?
Can somebody please point me to the technical guidelines section? The link mentioned[1] in the original article[2] is giving 404.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-technical-guidelines" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-technica...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/05/announcing-the-internet-org-platform/" rel="nofollow">https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/05/announcing-the-internet...</a>
They want it unencrypted so they can snarf all of the data. You can tunnel SSL over HTTP though. App developers have no real worries, but regular content delivery via http isn't going to fly.
A step in the right direction, but it seems a bit half hearted. I'm not really sure what services HTTP-only, no JavaScript and few images gets you, but it's going to be a tiny subset of what's possible for most people in countries where Internet.org is targeted. The best solution as far as I'm concerned would be to give x gigabytes of data a month away for free, regardless of the protocol or type of data being transmitted.
I saw an article today, and it made me think right away of this whole mess;<p><a href="http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2015/05/04/report-facebook-to-start-hosting-other-sites-content-this-month/" rel="nofollow">http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2015/05/04/report-facebook-to...</a>