An email leak is embarrassing for Google.
By Dileep Thekkethil
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An email leak of Google India’s Public Policy department suggests that the California-based company might have double standards when it comes to dealing with net neutrality in India versus back at home.
According to the technology and policy news website Medianama, Google, which strongly supports net neutrality in the US, tried to prevent the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), from taking an anti-zero rating stand in its submission to the Department of Telecom’s report on net neutrality.
In a series of emails exchanged between IAMAI’s Government Relations committee members and Google India Public Policy department, the California-based search engine giants rallied strongly for the removal of zero rating from IAMAI’s submission on net neutrality. The report was sought by the Department of Telecom (DoT) after network providers moved ahead with charging users for services such as WhatsApp Calls and other VoIP services.
Zero rating refers to the practice of offering free access to certain popular online services for customers of particular mobile networks.
The DoT committee report on Net Neutrality had questioned the intention of Internet.org, a Facebook-led initiative, because of its functioning as a gatekeeper for Internet access. The committee also expressed the fear of compromising the key principles of non-discriminatory access to the internet, if Facebook is allowed to dictate how content should be accessed.
Its report says, “The committee, therefore, is of the firm opinion that content and application providers cannot be permitted to act as gatekeepers and use network operations to extract value even if it is for an ostensible public purpose.”
It also added, “Collaborations between TSPs and content providers that enable such gatekeeping role to be played by any entity should be actively discouraged.”
Vineeta Dixit, a member of Google’s Public Policy, whose email conversation with IAMAI was accessed by Medianama has written to the committee to remove any mentions of zero rating from the report as there is no consensus on the issue.
The email read, “We would like to register a strong protest against this formulation and would request you to remove this [zero rating] from the submission.”
Interestingly, Google had last year joined COAI, a telecom lobby, this a few months after Facebook did the same. COAI has been relentlessly lobbying for both zero rating and the licensing or regulation of Internet-based messaging and telephony in India.
According to an earlier report that appeared in The Economic Times, Google was in the pipeline of introducing a zero rated platform in India, something similar to Facebook’s Internet.org. But it didn’t materialize due to the strong resistance from Internet users in India, who signed thousands of online petitions against the zero rated platforms, especially the one introduced by Airtel called Airtel Zero.