New Delhi: In what could give the cause of Net Neutrality a major boost, online travel agent Cleartrip today announced that it has taken a decision to walk out of Internet.org initiative.
Cleartrip which had joined hands with Facebook to participate in its internet.org initiative announced that it has withdrawn its association with the program entirely.
Internet.org is Facebook's initiative to bring internet services to areas that are still not connected to the web and was launched in India in February 2015. Humble as the concept seems, it could violate Net Neutrality because it entails that all websites and apps should get the user accessibility and bandwidth. For example, Internet.org only allows users to search queries only via Microsoft's Bing, but not Google or other search engines.
This welcome move comes on heels of e-commerce major Flipkart announcing its decision to walk out of the controversial Airtel Zero.
Time to draw a line in the sand, Cleartrip is pulling out of http://t.co/S7VKhY4RC7 & standing up for #NetNeutrality http://t.co/JtpCtbK0AT
— Cleartrip (@Cleartrip) April 15, 2015
The company in a official blog post explained its decision:
If Cleartrip supports Net Neutrality, then one might legitimately ask why Cleartrip chose to participate in the Indian launch of Internet.org.
Here’s why: a few weeks back, Facebook reached out and asked us to participate in the Internet.org initiative with the intention of helping us deliver one of our most affordable products to the more underserved parts of the country.
There was no revenue arrangement between us and Internet.org or any of its participants — we were neither paid anything, nor did we pay anything to participate. Additionally we don’t make any money out of that product. Since there was absolutely zero money changing hands, we genuinely believed we were contributing to a social cause.
But the recent debate around #NetNeutrality gave us pause to rethink our approach to Internet.org and the idea of large corporations getting involved with picking and choosing who gets access to what and how fast.
What started off with providing a simple search service has us now concerned with influencing customer decision-making by forcing options on them, something that is against our core DNA.
So while our original intent was noble, it is impossible to pretend there is no conflict of interest (both real and perceived) in our decision to be a participant in Internet.org. In light of this, Cleartrip has withdrawn our association with and participation in Internet.org entirely. We believe that the Internet is a great leveler and that freedom of the Internet is critical for innovation. Cleartrip is and always will be a fully committed supporter of #NetNeutrality.
