Washington: About 60 digital rights groups from several nations across the globe, including India, the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Austria and others, have criticised Facebook’s Internet.org initiative, saying that it undermines net neutrality.
In an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg , the groups, some of whom have worked in the area of providing connectivity to the poor, claimed that the initiative had been wrongly marketed as providing access to the full Internet, even though it provided access to a limited number of services that are approved by Facebook and local Internet service providers.
Through Internet.org, Facebook and some other firms aim to extend internet connectivity to the underprivileged around the world.
However, the program, which was criticized in India for creating ‘walled gardens’, offers only select websites and services, including those of Facebook, at no data charges to users.
It has been launched in some countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa.