#SaveTheInternet

Internet, The platform which helps people with education, medical needs, to stay connected and more. But on the other side its the blooming market for corporate to advertise their product, snoop your personal data and kill your privacy online. Think on Internet being in hands of private, Too scary isn’t it?  But sorry to say some Telecom operators are trying to bring Internet as private property which will be violating digital equality. If you really want to support the cause please sign the petition here. Today [Dec 30th 2015] is the last date to send the petition to TRAI.

You must have heard FREE BASICS initiative by Facebook. The scheme violates the digital equality which will lead to lack of freedom for the Indian users over internet. You might have seen Free basic ads on Tv, Facebook notification, Paper ads and more. What if I say these are all marketing strategies to make you fall into the trap. Yes I will say the flaws in the initiative before blindly supporting for Free basics take your time to read on this and decide what you should do.

1. Facebook decides what you should see                 
   
   To add any service as a free basic service, The developer has to enroll his app/website in Fbstart program. The interface decides whether to add the product as a basic or not. So Facebook will decide what we should see and what we should use, If that had happened there would be no whatsapp now and we all will be using Facebook messenger for free. No new products which are competitor with the company will not be allowed into the game which makes monopolistic market, So after a period of time freelancing developers will stop developing apps and services due to high market challenges. We [Internet users] will be pushed to a state we have no alternatives for the service provided and we will be ready to pay what the company asks us to pay that moment.

   2. Say goodbye to Privacy

   When a developer enrolls his app/service on Free basic then he has to build it the way which Facebook has directed. This reduces the security of the apps and Facebook can access the personal data stored on its server. The digital marketing has saturated around the globe and is at tipping edge at India, Using these information they can earn more and you can lose your privacy. Facebook say there are no Ads in Free basic till now. But its not sure that Fb will not add advertisements in the day to come. Ads will not be a problem but the critical information like bank credentials, health data etc can be snooped by the private company and who knows even to NSA. There is no good this scheme is going to do. Its designed in such a way to attract more people into it and charge for non basic services. That is you have to pay extra for using certain services even you have paid for your data packs.

   Its time for us to raise against it, Only TRAI has the power to stop this issue for ever. Together we can fight for digital equality. To support the cause please sign this petition and mail it to TRAI. Say no to Free Basics, If you don’t want internet to be split up like the cable Tv.