Internet.org By Facebook

Internet.org

It is a partnership between social networking services company Facebook and six companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm) that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries by increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access.

It has been criticized for violating net neutrality and favoring Facebook's own services over its rivals. An Indian journalist, in his reply to Mark Zuckerberg's article defending Internet.org in India, criticized Internet.org as "being just a Facebook proxy targeting India's poor" as it provides restricted Internet access to Reliance Telecom's subscribers in India.Until April 2015, Internet.org users could access (for free) only a few websites, and Facebook's role as gatekeeper in determining what websites were in that list was criticised for violating net neutrality. In May 2015, Facebook announced that the Internet.org Platform would be opened to websites that met its criteria.

History

Launch

Internet.org was launched on August 20, 2013. At the time of launch, Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a ten-page whitepaper he had written elaborating on the vision. In the paper, he wrote that Internet.org was a further step in the direction of Facebook's past initiatives, such as Facebook Zero, to improve Internet access for people around the world. He also said that "connectivity is a human right." A TechCrunch article about the launch compared Internet.org with Google's Project Loon.

Participants

Below is a selective history of launch dates and participating mobile networks:

July 2014: Zambia

October 2014: Tanzania

November 2014: Kenya

January 2015: Colombia

January 2015: Ghana, with Airtel

10 February 2015: India with Reliance Communications

18 March 2015: Philippines with Smart Communications

31 March 2015: Guatemala with Tigo 

20 April 2015: Indonesia with Indosat

10 May 2015: Bangladesh with Robi

13 May 2015: Malawi with TNM and Airtel 

28 May 2015: Pakistan with Telenor Pakistan 

5 June 2015: Senegal with Tigo

19 June 2015: Bolivia with VIVA

1 July 2015 : South Africa with Cell C

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org , https://internet.org/about