New Delhi: Amid a raging debate over equal Internet access for all, India’s largest online retailer, Flipkart has decided to bury its negotiations with telecom operator Airtel to join the latter’s “Zero” platform.
After facing a severe criticism on social media, Flipkart also said it will be commiting towards the larger cause of Net Neutrality in India. The e-commerce site will have internal discussions over the next few days, and contribute to support the cause. It will be working to ensure net neutrality is ‘applied equally to all companies in India irrespective of the size or the services they offer.
Here’s the complete official statement from Flipkart:
We at Flipkart have always strongly believed in the concept of net neutrality, for we exist because of the Internet. Over the past few days, there has been a great amount of debate, both internally and externally, on the topic of zero rating, and we have a deeper understanding of the implications. Based on this, we have decided on the following:
We will be walking away from the ongoing discussions with Airtel for their platform Airtel Zero.
We will be committing ourselves to the larger cause of Net Neutrality in India. We will be internally discussing over the next few days, the details of actions we will take to support the cause.
We will be working towards ensuring that the spirit of net neutrality is upheld and applied equally to all companies in India irrespective of the size or the service being offered and there is absolutely no discrimination whatsoever.