Centre for Internet and Society

FCC’s plan to repeal net neutrality may not impact India

Admin — 2017-11-26T11:43:59Z

India is unlikely to be impacted by the US Federal Communications Commission’s plan to repeal net neutrality regulations.

The article by Surabhi Agarwal was published in the Economic Times on November 23, 2017. Sunil Abraham quoted.

India adopted a pro-net neutrality stand by taking a tough call against zero-rated plans such as Facebook’s Free Basics and Airtel Zero last year. According to experts, the Indian telecom regulator showed great courage and conviction by battling any type of preferential treatment of internet websites. This was even after a massive campaign by Facebook in support of its Free Basics programme, which promised access to a few basic services free of cost through partnerships with selected telecom service providers.

“Our regulator now thinks of itself as a forerunner in this space, so we doubt they are going to be influenced by the American move,” said Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru. He called the proposal to withdraw the President Barack Obama era regulations “incredible” since they took almost a decade and lots of debate to be framed. Abraham said there is no evidence to suggest that India copies what the US does and there is a long way to go before the new regulations come in.

“The FCC is just one actor in this game — there are the Congress and the courts along with the Federal Trade Commission,” said Abraham, adding that the proposal is likely to be challenged at multiple levels. “I’m proposing to repeal the heavy-handed Internet regulations imposed by the Obama Administration and to return to the light-touch framework under which the Internet developed and thrived before 2015,” FCC chief Ajit Pai, who worked for Verizon Communications earlier, tweeted on Tuesday. The plan shared by Pai will be put to vote on December 14. Experts expect the plan to go through, given the Republican majority in the FCC and they fear it will allow internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast to give preference to some sites and apps in return for a fee or for their own business interests.

“If it goes through, it will take control away from the user and companies will be free to make fast lanes and favour the content they like and play the gatekeepers,” said Mishi Choudhary, president at Software Freedom Law Centre.

She said the conversation has once again moved the power back to internet service providers, which will hurt small companies on the pretext of innovation and getting away from micro managing. “It is certainly not bolstering the position of the US as a leader for free and open internet,” added Choudhary. Streaming service Netflix tweeted in response saying that it supports strong net neutrality and opposes the FCC’s proposal.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) fought a tough battle in 2016 against plans that promised select internet services to poor people by offering them free of cost. The regulator issued differential pricing regulations by which it banned what’s known as zerorating plans. “Trai showed immense foresight by releasing the rules and this is a good opportunity for India to occupy the vacuum of leadership in this space by providing the right regulatory environment,” said Choudhary.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-surabhi-agarwal-november-23-2017-fcc-plan-to-repeal-net-neutrality-may-not-impact-india

FB & Google have already monopolised Indian cyberspace

praskrishna — 2016-07-08T15:59:46Z

In an interview with Catch, Sunil Abraham, executive director of Center for Internet & Society, puts the recent US-India cyber relationship framework into perspective. Abraham also talks about how Indian surveillance policies are outdated and why the country has failed to check the hegemonic tendencies of companies like Facebook and Google.

The interview was published by Catch News on July 3, 2016.

US-India signed a cyber relationship framework earlier this month. Could you explain some of the takeouts that may have important implications in the near future?

In the framework, both sides have made a "commitment to the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance" - in immediate practical terms that means India will accept the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition proposed for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Unfortunately, as my colleague Pranesh Prakash points out "U.S. state control over the core of the internet's domain name system is not being removed by the transition that is currently underway."

India along with Brazil and other emerging powers should have insisted that the question of jurisdiction be addressed before the transition. We must remember, that the multi-stakeholder model is just a fancy name for open and participatory self-regulation by the private sector. While the multi-stakeholder model is useful as a complement to traditional state-led regulation, it cannot be used to protect human rights or ensure the security of a nation state.

[That is precisely why - the very next sentence in the announcement for the the framework for the US-India Cyber Relationship says "a recognition of the leading role for governments in cyber security matters relating to national security". This is because ICANN-style multistakeholderism requires all stakeholders to be on "equal footing" without "distinct roles and responsibilities". In other words, the governments are saying that the multistakeholder model is fine for all Internet Governance areas with the exception of Cyber Security. Given the limits of the multistakeholder model this is indeed the wise thing to do. Since American corporations dominate the Internet, US foreign policy has historically pushed for the multistakeholder model as fig leaf for forbearance and reduced foreign regulatory burden American corporations operating in other jurisdictions. Therefore India must not drink the multistakeholder cool-aid whole sale. It cannot afford a laissez-faire approach where it waits for corporations to self-regulate - it must regulate whenever public interest or human rights are harmed. In other words, it must go beyond the multistakeholder model and produce appropriate regulation where necessary. Needless to add - it must also deregulate in areas where harms don't exist. Apart from this many of the details of the announcement are positive steps that will increase security in India and the USA, and indeed the also across the world.]

What are some aspects of Intellectual Property Rights that should be looked at, in the context of the framework?

There is some language around Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) that should be examined carefully too. The US corporations benefit from a maximalist IP regime. But Make in India, Digital India and Startup India all depend on flexibilities to the IP regime and therefore India should refuse signing. Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) obligations like the "Digital 2 Dozen" which the US is actively proselytizing across the Pacific. If we make that mistake, we will make zero progress in indigenous security research and product development and also many other areas of our economy, health sector and education sector will be severely compromised. Therefore it would be best to keep IP rights expansion and enforcement out of the framework for the US-India Cyber Relationship.

The PIL seeking a ban on WhatsApp was refused by the SC recently. Encrypted messaging services like Telegram however, have been used in the past by terror groups. What's your take on such end-to-end encryption services?

Privacy and security are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other. End-to-end encryption is the basis for online privacy. End-to-end encryption is a pre-requisite for many legitimate actions of law abiding citizens online such as commerce, banking, tele-medicine, protection of intellectual property, witness/source protection, client confidentiality etc. Therefore, banning end-to-end encryption would mean the death of individual privacy and national security.

If the government wants to promote cyber security it should promote the use of end-to-end encryption amongst law abiding citizens.

Terrorist have to be stopped through targeted profiling, surveillance and interception. Big data analytics may be useful to watch for patterns in the meta data but there is no replacement for good old fashioned police work.

Once suspects have been identified the encrypted channels can be compromised by:

Placing trojans on the end-user devices
Performing man-in-the-middle attacks and
Using brute force attacks with super computers.

Snowden's revelations have made it very clear that blanket and mass surveillance does not help foil terror attacks or stop organised crime. So far, research and government reports from across the world indicate that only a minority of terrorists use encryption. However, this situation may change.

We don't have any proper encryption policy under the IT Act yet. What's taking so long and what are the key points that any policy in this matter must include in future?

We need many different types of encryption policies. We need a policy that mandates encryption and digital signature for all government personnel and also for all government transactions. We need policies that promote research and development in cryptography and mathematics. We need to update our criminal procedure code so that encrypted communications and data can be targeted by law enforcement and used effectively in the criminal justice process.

However, we should not have any broad encryption policy that tries to regulate encryption as a technology. That would be a highly regressive move and will be impossible to enforce. That would breed contempt for rule of law.

Surveillance and the tech around it has been contentious for various governments. Where do we stand vis-a-vis regulating surveillance measures by the state?

Our surveillance and interception laws are outdated. They need to be modernized to deal with advancements in technology and also global developments when it comes to data protection and privacy law.

In fact, our organisation was part of a global effort called Necessary and Proportionate which identified 13 principles to modernise surveillance which are connected to various aspects such as Legality, Legitimate aim, Competent judicial authority, Integrity of communications and systems and more. Some of these principles may have to be customised for the Indian context. [For example, given the load on courts perhaps India should stay with executive authorization of interceptions and data access requests. However, getting the law correct is only half the job. For the law cannot fix what the technology has broken. Some surveillance projects are well designed. For ex. the NATGRID - from what I understand it is a standard and platform that which will allow 12 security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to temporarily make unions of sub-sets of 21 data sources. These automated temporary databases will be created under existing data access provisions of the law. I also hope the NATGRID is also using cryptography to ensure the maintenance of a non-repudiable log that will identify all officers involved in authorizing the each request and accessing the resultant data. Unfortunately, other surveillance projects are unmitigated disasters. For example, UID or Aadhaar. Many Indians don't realize that Aadhaar is a surveillance project. Biometrics is just a fancy name for remote, covert and non-consensual identification technology. Using the UID database the government can identify every single Indian without their consent. The so called "consent layer" in the India Stack is being developed by volunteers outside the UIDAI to avoid transparency under the Right to Information Act. Nothing in the current layer of the "consent layer" allows citizens to revoke consent. There is no facility in the UID Act to delete yourself from the database. Identity information aka the UID number and authentication information aka your biometrics for about a billion Indians have been collected and stored in a centralized location. It is as if our parliamentarians have written an open letter to criminals and foreign governments says "here is the information you need to wreck whole sale damage - come and get it". Hopefully the Supreme Court will save us from this impending disaster.]

With a sluggish US market, India has the biggest potential for companies like FB & Google, next only to China. Do you feel that in the quest to take over the Indian market, FB & Google are going to monopolise cyberspace in India?

I have news for you - they have already monopolised Indian cyberspace. They have completely wiped out competition in certain domains.

One of the many reasons they have done this is because we don't have laws and regulations to temper their hegemonic tendencies. For example, we could use data portability and interoperability mandates for social media to spark competition in markets where there are entrenched monopolies.

Competition law can be used to protect other firms from abuse of market power. Consumer protection law and privacy law could be used to ensure that user's rights are not compromised in the race for market share. In addition, a modern privacy law compliant with the best practices in the European Data Protection Regulation 2016, would allow emerging Indian companies to compete with giants like Facebook and Google on a level playing field. [Speaking of level playing field - only recently has the government introduced the "equalization levy". This was long overdue. Imagine the amount of tax that could have been collected so far and damage that has been done to competition. Regardless the current NDA government deserves our kudos for ensuring that Facebook and Google contribute their fair share of taxes. The new IPR Policy was also an opportunity to address the monopoly of Google and Facebook. There should have been a concerted attempt to use free/open source software, open standard and open content to bolster Indic language technologies. A billion dollars from every spectrum auction should be used to create incentives for Indian private sector, research and academic organisation who can contribute openly to the Indic cyberspace. This is the market where we can still build a highly competitive market. Today, given government inaction - millions of Indians are training Google's language platforms every time they use machine translation or speech to text technologies. This corpus of information will not be available for public interest research. Ideally we should also have Indians contributing to commons-based peer production projects like Wikipedia for their Indic language needs. Unfortunately the government totally missed this opportunity.]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/catch-news-asad-ali-july-3-2016-fb-and-google-have-already-monopolised-indian-cyberspace

Fallacies, Lies, and Video Pirates

pranesh — 2011-08-04T04:43:08Z

At a recent conference on counterfeiting and piracy, industry representatives variously pushed for stiffer laws for IP violation, more stringent enforcement of existing IP laws, and championed IP as the most important thing for businesses today. This blog post tries to show how their arguments are flawed.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized its third annual conference on counterfeiting and piracy, with support from the United States Embassy and the Quality Brands Protection Committee of China (a body comprising more than 80 multinational companies). Last week we criticised the conference in an open letter. This week, we examine a few of the recurring themes that came up at the conference.

Something being substandard is not the same as something being counterfeit.

This was a mistake made by many whenever they invoked 'counterfeit' in the sense of something that is violative of one's patent and trademark rights. The Indian Drugs and Cosmetics Act itself distinguishes between 'misbranded', 'adulterated', and 'spurious' drugs, thus recognizing that something that is made without proper authorization from rights owners isn't necessarily of a bad quality. Indeed, this was substantiated by an audience member, a lawyer from Dr. Reddy's Lab. She spoke of a mandi in Agra where they seized medicines being sold under the Dr. Reddy's name, but produced by local manufacturers. Upon lab testing, it turned out, much to their surprise, that the medicines were of the highest quality and were not substandard. Similarly, many large companies including trusted FMCG companies like Hindustan Unilever and ITC are upbraided by authorities for violations of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act (for the cosmetics they produce) as well as the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. Thus, even legitimate businesses can produce substandard products. Thus, a product can be unauthorized but not substandard, just as a product can be substandard but not counterfeit.

This distinction becomes very important when we talk about patents, and especially drug patents. A generic drug is by definition identical or within an acceptable bio-equivalent range to the brand name counterpart with respect to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. Thus, this entire category of high-quality drugs is often sought to be made illegal or counterfeit by large pharma companies. Some countries like Kenya have capitulated. But so far the World Health Assembly has been forced by developing countries to keep the issue of substandard medicines separate from patent-bypassing medicines.

The industry, for all their talk about "out of the box" thinking on the issue, still only consider metrics such the number of piracy raids conducted as measures of success. A question was put forth by Manisha Shridhar of the Intellectual Property & Trade Unit of the World Health Organization upon learning of the quality of the drugs seized at the Agra mandi: Why not cut a licensing deal with those manufacturers, who obviously have excellent production facilities? That kind of thinking, which helped HMV in India in the 1980s, and copying innovative features from video pirates and pricing their products competitively has helped an Indian company, Moserbaer, do extremely well.

Counterfeiters and pirates are not always seeking to fool consumers.

Only lawyers hired by the industry would think that a consumer aspiring towards a Rolex watch would actually think that the one he purchased off the streets for one-hundredth the original's price was in fact original. Street-side DVD hawkers are not thought by the general public to be selling original wares. Still, despite knowing the difference between the original and the fake, consumers many times opt for the latter.

Having said that, counterfeiting, by using someone else's trademark and trying to pass off fake goods as real ones, is quite obviously wrong. It harms customers, and it harms the manufacturers. Thus, a distinction deserves to be made here between the counterfeiters who try to deceive consumers (for instance by copying authenticity marks, like holograms, etc.) and those who are just providing them with highly cheaper alternatives (pirated DVDs, etc.). In this light, it is also important here to distinguish between counterfeiting, traditionally taken to be trademark violation, and piracy, traditionally taken to be a violation of international law, but now generally meaning a large-scale violation of copyright law. While the former can lead to consumer confusion, the latter scarcely ever does. This is ignored by industry people who evoke the image of the consumer quite often, but only when it helps them, and not in any meaningful manner. They negate consumer choice when it comes to consciously purchasing pirated goods, and consumer freedoms when it comes to usage of copyrighted materials.

While commercial film piracy funds terrorists, so does pretty much every business activity.

A favourite of the MPAA (and by association, the MPA) is the RAND report on Film Piracy and its Connection to Organized Crime and Terrorism. This report, which was funded by the MPAA, predictably concludes that film piracy funds organized crime and terrorism. Even if we are to believe its findings wholesale, it leaves us wondering whether all business activities from which terrorists derive funds should be banned.

In India, there is a substantiated link between organized crime and film and music production, and terrorists have been said to make money off the stock market. If the MPA's arguments are taken to their logical conclusions, then film production and equity trading should also be prosecuted. Furthermore, while the mafia and terrorists are the ostensible targets, the laws that are brought about to tackle it affect poor roadside vendors and non-commercial online file sharers. To tackle the funding of terrorists, roadside piracy shouldn't become the target just as film production per se shouldn't. The invocation of the RAND report is thus only meant for rhetorical effect, as it is hard to find logic in there.

"To copy without authorization is to steal", the death penalty, and drug peddling.

At the conference, Dominic Keating of the US Embassy pointed out that "to copy without authorization is to steal" and David Brener of US Customs and Border Protection kept emphasising, on at least two occasions, that "drug peddling merits an automatic death sentence in many countries". There are numerous arguments one can make to show the lack of thought in the former. One could point out that 'stealing' and 'theft' are things that happen to tangible property, and that not only is copyright not tangible, but it is barely property. Copying without authorization creates one more of what existed, without depriving the authorizer (usually a corporation) of its original. This goes against our notion of 'stealing'. If the argument is to be shifted to the terrain of control over one's property/copyright, Mark Lemley in an illuminative article shows how the economic theories behind externalities in property and copyright are vastly different, and that complete control over either has never been, nor should it ever be, an aim of the law. Simply put, someone free riding on your property leaves you worse off than earlier, while someone free riding on your copyright usually doesn't.

One could also point out that 'stealing' is endemic in activities involving human creativity. T.S. Eliot notes that "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different". He does not even consider the possibility that artistic borrowing, whether by imitation or by 'stealing' does not happen. Even Y.S. Rajan, Principal Adviser to CII recognized this when during the conference he noted that "imitation and innovation have an interesting and intertwining philosophical history". If we are to take Mr. Keating's admonishment seriously, we would indeed have a very illustrious list of thieves on our hands, including the Walt Disney Corporation, William Shakespeare, Vladamir Nabokov, Public Enemy, and pretty much every creative person who has ever lived. Books can be written about this (and indeed, numerous books have been), so we shall not dwell on this issue.

Mr. Brener's repeatedly spoke of how drug peddling attracts death penalty in many countries (though in neither the US nor in India has anyone ever received capital punishment for drug peddling), but he also clarified that he is not advocating for the death penalty for copyright violations. That made one wonder why he was bringing up the death penalty at all. He also made the dubious, non-substantiated claim (noting it as "true fact") that pirating movies is more profitable than selling heroin. This claim appears in an article about a report produced by the Australian Federation Against Counterfeit Theft (AFACT), but the original report is nowhere to be found. The article about the AFACT report also claims that the pirates are using their illicit profits promote drug smuggling. The seeming contradiction of film pirates investing in something that is riskier and less profitable doesn't seem to have caught the eye of the writers. One version of the 'drugs are less profitable than pirated DVDs' claim (with marijuana taking heroin's place) was debunked on the Commons Law mailing list. Pirated DVDs are sold for a fraction of the cost of the original. It would be obvious to anyone that DVDs that are typically sold for Rs.30-50, where the cost of manufacture alone may be estimable to be around Rs. 10, cannot be more profitable than heroin peddling. That apart, most online file sharing (deemed to be "piracy") is non-commercial. Thus the question of profit does not really arise. Still, for the industry, absence of a profit is equal to a loss.

Thus, the rhetoric of crime, and that too heinous crime, is continually used, despite its being completely inapposite. Why does used to try to make IP enforcement a matter of state concern, rather than a matter of private, and civil, interest. This way, illegitimate statistics and factoids are used to make individual file-sharers who earn no money get lengthy prison sentences. This and other ways in which IP enforcement has expanded are carefully documented in this paper by Susan Sell.

Repeating false 'statistics' does not make them true.

Again, we were subjected to a number of dubious claims during the conference: If only counterfeiting and piracy were eliminated, India's fiscal deficit would disappear; the Indian entertainment industry loses 16000 crore (USD 4 billion) yearly to piracy; 820,000 direct jobs are lost due to film piracy; software piracy costs the industry USD 2.7 billion annually, etc. These reports' methodologies have been thorougly discredited. Even The Economist, a very conservative and pro-industry newspaper, believes that the BSA-IDC annual reports on software piracy are utterly distorted. Similarly, in the U.S., the figure of 750,000 jobs (around 8% of the U.S. unemployed in 2008) being lost due to piracy were touted by everyone from the Department of Commerce, the Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Border and Customs Protection, and the MPAA, RIAA, and BSA. The amount of money lost each year in the U.S. due to IP infringement has been estimated to be between USD 200-250 billion (that's more than the combined 2005 gross domestic revenues of the movie, music, software, and video game industries). In a lengthy piece in Ars Technica, Julian Sanchez traces back the history of both these figures, and shows how they are just large numbers used for lobbying, and are not based on actual studies. The industry-commissioned Ernst & Young report ("The Effects of Counterfeiting and Piracy on India's Entertainment Industry") was never made available to the public at large, thereby making it impossible to judge the methodological soundness of the survey and the veracity of the figures.

IP expansion and more stringent enforcement is counter-productive.

Chander Mohan Lall, copyright lawyer to various film studios (including Warner Bros.) in India, used a number of short film clips in presentation during the conference. Upon being questioned about it, he admitted that he did not have permissions of the copyright holders, but claimed that his use fell under "the education exception" in Indian copyright law. While I wish he were correct (because what he was doing was indeed educational use), as per the law he is wrong. Section 52(1)(i) of the Copyright Act only exempts educational usage of cinematograph film recordings when "audience is limited to such staff and students [of an educational institution], the parents and guardians of the students and persons directly connected with the activities of the institution". While there are other arguments he could seek to use to make his usage of the film clilps non-infringing, being excepted by the educational fair dealings clauses isn't one of them. Thus, more stringent enforcement of IP rights actually engenders such unauthorized, but perfectly legitimate copying and communication to the public such as that done by Mr. Lall.

Another way in which IP enforcement is being sought to be increased is by way of the so-called Goonda Acts. These are generally statutes aimed at criminals and lumpen elements in society. The Maharastra version, the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers, Drug-Offenders and Dangerous Persons Act, 1981, just became the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers, Drug-Offenders, Dangerous Persons and Video Pirates Act. The term "video pirate" is very widely defined, to include any copyright infringement-chargesheeter who is "engaged or is making preparations for engaging in any of his activities as a video pirates, which affect adversely or likely to affect adversely, the maintenance of public order". Public order is deemed to be disturbed by "producing and distributing pirated copies of music or film products, thereby resulting in a loss of confidence in administration". Thus video pirates can possibly be interpreted to include individual sitting at home and using P2P networks to share films. The only requirement is that they should have had a chargesheet lodged against them previously -- they needn't even have been convicted; being chargesheeted suffices. Thus, non-commercial activities of file-sharing are equated to bootleggers and drug smugglers, and preventive detention (an anti-civil rights relic of India's colonial past) is applicable to them.

IP expansion is happening without the ostensible justifications for IP being kept in mind. That Tirupathi ladoos are going to get GI (geographical indicator) protection was announced at the conference with great pride. Geographical indicators are used to protect consumer interests, to ensure that no one outside a particular region (Champagne) can lay claim to be producing that product (Champagne) if the production of that product is intrinsically linked to special features found in that region (climate, etc.). However, no devout person would want to purchase anything advertised as "Tirupathi ladoo" if it were produced outside the Venkateswara temple at Tirupathi, thus the question of consumer confusion does not arise. What if someone malignantly advertises something as Tirupathi ladoo and claims it was made in Tirupathi (and not just that it tastes like the ladoo made there)? Such a person can be taken to task for deceptive advertising, and there is no need for something to have IP protection to do so. This represents a senseless expansionism of IP. It is now IP for IP's sake.

One of the speakers, Mr. V.N. Deshmukh, who though pro-stringent IP enforcement, astutely noted that, "When local demand is not met, they [consumers] turn to counterfeiters and pirates." Local demand can be unsatisfied because of lack of supply, or because the supply is overpriced, or because the supply is not easy to access, or because what is supplied is inferior to what is demanded. At the end of the day, as William Patry, Google's lead counsel, has noted, what companies sell to the public are products and services, and not IP. It would thus be wise for businesses to be innovative and compete rather than trying to extend their monopolies and engaging in rent-seeking behaviour that is economical harmful to consumers. They would also do well to remember that IP is not only a product but an input as well, so they are ultimately consumers themselves. All the harsher laws and enforcement mechanisms that they push for right now will have unintended consequences, and come to affect them adversely.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/fallacies-lies-and-video-pirates

Fair process frameworks for cross-border online spaces

praskrishna — 2013-10-21T09:02:02Z

This workshop is being organised by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of France, Western Europe and Others Group and Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of Germany, Western Europe and Others Group. Sunil Abraham is one of the panelists for this workshop.

The Internet Governance Forum 2013 is being held at Bali from October 22 to 25. The overarching theme for the 2013 IGF meeting is: "Building Bridges"- Enhancing Multistakeholder Cooperation for Growth and Sustainable Development".

Read the original published on IGF website. Also read it on Internet & Jurisdiction website.

Theme: Legal Frameworks and Cyber-crime (Spam, Cyber-security, etc.)

This workshop is organized by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, a global multi-stakeholder dialogue process launched in January 2012, which engages key actors from states, international organizations, companies, civil society, academia and the technical community from all around the world to address the tension between the cross-border Internet and national jurisdictions.

Over 2,5 billion Internet users interact in shared cross-border online spaces where they can post content potentially accessible worldwide. On the one hand platforms’ Terms of Service try to set transnational rules on acceptable postings, but on the other hand content that is legal in one jurisdiction can be illegal or sensitive in other territories. No clear frameworks exist yet to handle the tensions between these competing normative orders or values and enable peaceful cohabitation in cross-border cyberspaces. This challenge constitutes a rare issue of common concern for all stakeholder groups.

Building upon the intersessional work conducted by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project since the 2012 IGF, the roundtable will address the following topics:

Can commonly agreed interoperability procedures ensure fair process in interactions between platforms, public authorities, technical operators and users regarding seizures, content takedowns and access to user data? regarding seizures, content takedowns and LEA access to user data? - See more at: http://www.internetjurisdiction.net/igf2013-workshop/#sthash.q6PQ3uMn.dpuf

How could appropriate multi-stakeholder frameworks be developed?

Note: This roundtable is listed above under the “legal frameworks and cybercrime” track. However it equally touches upon other thematic areas: Human Rights/ Freedom of Expression on the Internet (addressing takedown procedures); Internet Governance Principles (eg. fair process and accountability) and Principles of Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation (the development of mutual frameworks).

Has the proponent organised a workshop with a similar subject during past IGF meetings?

Yes

Indication of how the workshop will build on but go beyond the outcomes previously reached

At the IGF 2012, after a year of interaction with different stakeholders, the Internet & Jurisdiction Project organized two workshops titled: “What is the Geography of Cyberspace?” and “What frameworks for cross-border online communities and services?” These sessions explored the roots of the tension between the Internet and the patchwork of national jurisdictions and examined how to address this common concern. Both these two workshops and the ongoing dialogue facilitated by the I&JProject in 2013 (including several preparatory meetings around the world) confirmed the need to explore how to develop appropriate frameworks to handle the tension in a multi-stakeholder setting. Therefore, the I&J Project will gather involved stakeholders at the 2013 workshop “Fair process frameworks for cross-border online spaces” to discuss the way forward: How could appropriate frameworks be developed and what commonly agreed interoperability procedures could ensure fair process?

Background Paper: No background paper provided

Session Type: Roundtable

Mr. Bertrand De La Chapelle, Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society, France, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG

Mr. Paul Fehlinger, Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society, Germany, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG

Have the Proponent or any of the co-organisers organised an IGF workshop before?

Yes

The link(s) to the workshop report(s):

Panelists

Please click on biography to view the biography of the panelist:

Fiona Alexander, Department of Commerce, NTIA, Female, Government, United States, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Anne Carblanc, OECD, Female, Intergovernmental Organizations, France, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Elvana Thaci, Council of Europe, Female, Intergovernmental Organizations, France, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet & Society, Male, Civil Society, India, Asia-Pacific Group
Biography
Anriette Esterhuysen, Association for Progressive Communications, Female, Civil Society, South Africa, African Group
Biography
Carlos Affonso Pereira Da Souza, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Male, Technical Community, BRAZIL, Latin American and Caribbean Group – GRULAC
Biography
Ross Lajeunesse, Google, Male, Private Sector, United States, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG Biography
Ebele Okobi, Yahoo, Female, Private Sector, United States, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography
Linda Corugedo Steneberg, European Commission, Belgium, Western Europe and Others Group – WEOG
Biography

Agenda

Can commonly agreed interoperability procedures ensure fair process in interactions between platforms, public authorities, technical operators and users regarding seizures, content takedowns and access to user data?
How could appropriate multi-stakeholder frameworks be developed?

Inclusiveness of the Session

The format of the workshop is going to be an open roundtable discussion between a diverse group of stakeholders on the basis of a structured agenda, without formal presentations. Taking stock of the preparatory process with meetings around the world, the participants will be able to discuss the outcomes of the multi-stakeholder dialogue process, explore the components of possible frameworks and how to move forward. The objective is to produce a structured but fluid and dynamic discussion that includes the audience in the debate.

Suitability for Remote Participation

In addition to the remote participation tools provided by the IGF, the session will be covered live on Twitter with a dedicated hashtag and questions can also be submitted through tweets to open the discussion and engage new stakeholders. Moreover, participants of the Internet & Jurisdiction dialogue process around the world will be encouraged to participate remotely in the discussion.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/igf-2013-workshop-42-fair-process-frameworks-for-cross-border-online-spaces

Faculty Seminar: Talk on Normativising Competitive Markets Contextually; Transmission Art Installation — Reordered Spaces

praskrishna — 2013-03-27T12:29:52Z

This event was organized by Azim Premji University on December 26, 2012. Sharath Chandra Ram installed and presented the Re-ordered Spaces. Abhayraj Naik gave a talk.

About the Installation

In the light of recent legal debates concerning street food vending, the video installations question habits of consumption and politics of public spaces complemented by a radio transmission of the audioscape, representing tactical ownership of available spectrum resource within private spaces.

Original installation link can be read here.
Click to read the full details of the event published on the website of Azim Premji University on March 26, 2013

About the Talk

Using urban street food vending as an example, this paper explores the possibilities of a contextualised normative outlook towards competitive markets, competition law, and economic policy in India. I argue that such an outlook would need to creatively engage with the phenomenon of substantial employment informality in India while also judiciously avoiding the allure of dogmatic half-truths based on empirically contestable assumptions about efficiency, illegality and welfare. In India the informal food sector caters to a vast population of desperately poor (and hungry) consumers who cannot afford a qualitatively substitutable product that is retailed through the formal production process. Private enterprise at generating affordable access to food in public spaces remains legally ambiguous, and the narratives of street food law, and street vending more generally, indicate confusion over how to understand the informal sector’s role in competitive urban retail trade. This paper suggests that a distinctively Indian perspective of constitutional economics is required to help us realign our (presently misguided) economic development models to appropriately recognize the empirical realities of the entrepreneurs in our midst, the pre-commitments of our unique constitutional order and competition policy, and the real demands of our customers as citizens.

Notes on the Speakers:

Abhayraj Naik works on issues in legal theory, philosophy, criminal justice, urban governance, ecology, and technology. He holds law degrees from the National Law School of India University (Bangalore) and the Yale Law School (New Haven).

Sharath Chandra Ram has research and pedagogical interests in citizen science, multimodal interaction, accessibility and digital humanities. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh specializing in Artificial Intelligence and interactive virtual environments and is Faculty at Srishti School of Art Design & Technology. As a researcher at the Centre for Internet & Society, he coordinates activities of the Metaculture Media Lab , an open citizen lab, now part of Columbia University's 'Dorkbot' collective.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/azimpremji-university-december-26-2012-talk-on-normativising-competitive-markets-contextually

Facial Recognition Technology in India

Elonnai Hickok, Pallavi Bedi, Aman Nair and Amber Sinha — 2021-09-02T16:17:44Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/facial-recognition-technology-in-india.pdf

Facebook’s Free Internet Access Program in Developing Countries Provokes Backlash

praskrishna — 2015-09-29T16:35:02Z

In India and Indonesia, users criticize Internet.org initiative, saying it violates the principles of net neutrality.

The article by Newley Purnell and Resty Woro Uniar was published in the Wall Street Journal on September 24, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave inputs.

When Muhammad Maiyagy Gery heard about a new mobile app from Facebook Inc. that provides free Internet access in his native Indonesia, he was excited.

But after testing it, the 24-year-old student from a mining town on the eastern edge of Borneo soon deleted the app, called Internet.org, frustrated that he was unable to access Google. com and some local Indonesian sites.

Mr. Gery said Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is an “inspiration in the tech world,” but added that the company’s free Internet effort is “inadequate.”

Mr. Gery’s reaction illustrates the unexpected criticism Facebook has encountered to its bold initiative to bring free Internet access to the world’s four billion people who don’t have it, and to increase connectivity among those with limited access. He is one of many users who say a Facebook-led partnership is providing truncated access to websites, thwarting the principles of what is known in the U.S. as net neutrality—the view that Internet providers shouldn’t be able to dictate consumer access to websites.

Since Mr. Zuckerberg’s announcement of the $1 billion project two years ago, Facebook has launched Internet.org in 19 countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa by teaming up with mobile carriers and technology giants including Samsung Electronics Co. , chip maker Qualcomm Inc. and telecom-equipment firm Ericsson AB. Facebook says that through the initiative, in which it is also experimenting with drones and satellites to deliver Web access, some nine million people have come online.

Users with data-enabled feature phones can access a special website through a mobile browser, while those with smartphones can download the app from Google’s Play Store. Though arrangements vary by country, the Internet.org app typically provides a simplified, low-data version of Facebook, its Messenger service and selected local websites offering services like jobs, health information and sports updates. Facebook says it works with mobile operators, which provide free data, and governments to pick sites for the platform.

While some applaud the Internet initiative, the U.S. company is dealing with a backlash from users in some of its fastest-growing markets like Indonesia and India, which are key to its future expansion.

In response to the criticism, Mr. Zuckerberg earlier this year wrote an opinion article that appeared in two Indian newspapers defending the project. He argued that the initiative is compatible with the principles of net neutrality, and that if people “can’t afford to pay for connectivity, it is always better to have some access and voice than none at all.”

But criticism about the initiative has placed Facebook in an awkward position. The social network along with other tech companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Twitter Inc. are members of the U.S. industry group Internet Association, which advocates for net neutrality, among other issues. In markets like Indonesia and India, critics say Facebook is more interested in controlling which websites users can tap into than in ensuring free Internet access. “It’s not Internet.org. It’s walled garden.org,” said Sunil Abraham, head of the Bangalore, India-based Center for Internet and Society.

Facebook wants to be seen as a pioneer “of the open and free Internet and not the opposite,” said Neha Dharia, an analyst at telecommunications research firm Ovum.

On Thursday, Facebook said it was changing the name of the Internet.org app and mobile website to Free Basics by Facebook in order to better distinguish it from the company’s wider Internet.org initiative. Asked whether the change was related to criticism of the project, a Facebook spokeswoman said that the name will “more intuitively describe the product to consumers.”

Chris Daniels, Facebook’s vice president in charge of the project, said in a recent interview that he has been surprised by the criticism of the project, noting that many people have gained access to the Web.

This spring in India, travel website Cleartrip, news channel NDTV and a mobile news app pulled their content from the platform amid concerns over net neutrality.

Cleartrip referred inquiries about its reasons for leaving the initiative to an April statement it posted on its website. In that statement, the company said the backlash in India “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.”

Vishal Anand, chief product officer at mobile news app Dailyhunt, said that “While we appreciate the effort to give people Internet access, we fully support the principles of net neutrality.” He declined to elaborate on the company’s specific objections to Internet.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/wsj-september-24-2015-newley-purnell-resty-woro-uniar-facebook-free-internet-access-program-in-developing-countries-provokes-backlash

Facebook’s Fight to Be Free

praskrishna — 2016-01-31T09:11:52Z

In India, Mark Zuckerberg can’t give Internet access away.

The article by Adi Narayan and Bhuma Shrivastava was published in Bloomberg Businessweek on January 15, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Thanks mostly to its mobile-ad profits, Facebook has had a great couple of years. According to its most recent earnings report, in November, the company’s quarterly ad revenue rose 45 percent, to $4.3 billion, from the same period in 2014. It has more than 1.5 billion monthly users, just over half of all the people online anywhere. Keeping up its rate of user growth—more than 100 million people each year—will only get tougher.

A big part of the problem is that a lot of potential new eyeballs are in places where Internet access is patchy at best. Some of Facebook’s grander projects anticipated that issue: It has satellites and giant solar-powered planes that beam Wi-Fi down to areas that don’t have it. And then there’s Free Basics, the two-year-old project Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has called an online 911. In about three dozen countries so far, Free Basics—also known as Internet.org—includes a stripped-down version of Facebook and a handful of sites that provide news, weather, nearby health-care options, and other info. One or two carriers in a given country offer the package for free at slow speeds, betting that it will help attract new customers who’ll later upgrade to pricier data plans.

Facebook says Free Basics is meant to make the world more open and connected, not to boost the company’s growth. Either way, online access is an especially big deal in India, where there are 130 million people using Facebook, 375 million people online, and an additional 800 million-plus who aren’t. (The social network remains blocked in China.) That may help explain why Zuckerberg spent part of the first few weeks of his paternity leave appealing personally to Indians to lobby for Free Basics. On Dec. 21 the Indian government suspended the program, offered in the country by carrier Reliance Communications, while it weighs public comments and arguments from Internet freedom advocates who say preferential treatment for Facebook’s services threatens to stifle competition.

“An emerging country like India needs to provide the consumer with incentives to get onto the Internet.” —Neha Dharia, an analyst at consulting firm Ovum

Since the government’s telecommunications regulator announced the suspension, Facebook has bought daily full-page ads in major newspapers and plastered billboards with pictures of happy farmers and schoolchildren it says would benefit from Free Basics. Zuckerberg has frequently made the case himself via phone or newspaper op-ed, asking that Indians petition the government to approve his service. “If we accept that everyone deserves access to the Internet, then we must surely support free basic Internet services,” the CEO wrote in a column published in the Times of India, the nation’s largest daily paper, shortly before the new year. “Who could possibly be against this?”

Opponents, including some journalists and businesspeople, say Free Basics is dangerous because it fundamentally changes the online economy. If companies are allowed to buy preferential treatment from carriers, the Internet is no longer a level playing field, says Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Indian mobile-payment company Paytm. A spokesman for Sharma confirmed that Zuckerberg called to discuss the matter but declined to comment further.

India’s Internet base will grow with or without Facebook’s help, says Nikhil Pahwa, a tech blogger and co-founder of the Save the Internet coalition, which opposes Free Basics. “We don’t see Free Basics as philanthropy. We see it as a land grab,” says Pahwa. When dealing with the famously protectionist Indian government, that’s a pretty good argument. An April attempt by India’s top mobile carrier to underwrite data costs for certain apps drew heavy criticism, and the carrier, Bharti Airtel, has put the program on hold.

None of that means Facebook can’t help get more Indians online, says Neha Dharia, an analyst at consulting firm Ovum. “An emerging country like India needs to provide the consumer with incentives to get onto the Internet,” she says. “What Facebook Free Basics is doing is a bit extreme, but what you do need is a bit of a middle path.”

Internet sampler packages such as Free Basics can also help carriers like Reliance, the fourth-largest in India, upgrade their often-struggling networks, Dharia says. That’s a symbiotic process, because customers may quickly grow frustrated with the bare-bones service and demand more. Free Basics doesn’t have Gmail, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, or Bollywood music streaming. (Video will account for 64 percent of India’s data traffic by March 2017, consulting firm Deloitte estimates.) It’s meant to be a steppingstone. Facebook says about 40 percent of Free Basics users start paying for data plans within a month.

But again, if Free Basics catches on in India, people may just keep paying for data to use more Facebook and forget about some of those other services, says Dharia. “Facebook is the Internet” to a lot of people in India, she says. Google, whose services are most conspicuously absent from the Free Basics roster, declined to comment.

India’s telecommunications regulator says Facebook’s advocates and opponents have until Jan. 14 to file public comments; it’s received about 2.4 million responses so far, most of them form letters supporting Free Basics. The government’s decision could also ripple beyond India, says Pranesh Prakash, a Free Basics opponent and the policy director at the nonprofit Centre for Internet & Society in Bengaluru. In the weeks since India suspended Free Basics, Egypt, which had done the same back in October, once again shut down the Facebook plan, though the government wouldn’t say why. The India fight “will be a reputational challenge for Facebook,” says Prakash. “It will set the tone for Free Basics debate in other countries.”

The bottom line: Facebook’s free data plan in India faces strong opposition from local businesses and Internet freedom advocates.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bloomberg-businessweek-adi-narayan-bhuma-shrivastava

Facebook, my boyfriend is lousy

praskrishna — 2011-07-25T10:07:37Z

While a sizeable chunk of users do not mind living their life in public, oversharing can have nasty repercussions in real life. This article by Sahana Saran was published in the Bangalore Mirror on 24 July 2011.

A wife wrote a bitchy remark about her mother-in-law on Facebook when her husband was out of town. A happy homecoming turned sour when the husband saw the comment. There was a huge showdown which finally led to divorce.

On the flip side, when Savita and Vinay’s (name changed) baby was about to be born a couple of years ago, the couple’s friend live-tweeted the whole childbirth process and the proud parents didn’t mind.

Oversharing on social networks by young people can have damaging results, say internet experts. Why does it happen?

"These days youngsters hook on to social networking sites, and you cannot blame them for seeking each other’s company because that is how they are at that age. There are more restrictions on children these days because of security and abuse issues which the earlier generation may not have encountered. For example, sleepovers which were much common earlier may now not be readily allowed. Their time outside their house is also monitored. Many schools these days have surveillance cameras or some form of curbs that might restrict students from having a private interaction. That is why they seek such interactions through the internet and social networks. Still in India, there is not really a need to press the panic button saying that they are becoming Facebook addicts," says Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, who is an internet behaviour expert.

Sunil quotes an analysis done in Poland to show how much social networking has become a part of young people’s lives. It showed that teenage girls who meet every day in school, go back home and immediately switch on their PCs and start interacting with each other again. And all through the day, they are on Skype and can see every single thing that each one of them are doing in their rooms in their respective homes. Studies done in the Philipines demonstrate how personal life is becoming public. A study by the Institute of Philippine Culture showed that many of those assessed were on Friendster and allow full access to information on their accounts and readily share details of activities, interests and contacts.

Is the situation different in India? Bhavana, a business management graduate in her 20s, says that what she puts up on her social networking account depends solely on her state of mind. But she ensures that messages are not too personal because earlier she had put up posts which backfired.

"Sometime ago we were celebrating my brother’s birthday and some misunderstanding happened during the celebrations and I was heaped with blame by friends and relatives on FB when I tried to justify myself. I was taken aback. Now, I am more careful about posting messages about sensitive topics," she says.

And when you let people know where you are through Google Latitude, you need to watch against saying offensive things.

"There have been instances of people gate-crashing parties following a Twitter or FB post; in China, mobs of people have attacked those whose views they oppose," adds Sunil.

What makes some people, who would never dream of whipping up controversies in the real world, so reckless when they are online?

"Most often, it is a way of being noticed, of getting attention. Everyone wants to have a popular public profile and telling the world about your opinions and your activities is a way of gaining attention. But new forms of communication are being invented every other day and each has an etiquette of its own," says Sunil.

According to Dr Thomas M J, there are two kinds of people who are the net — attention-seeking and anonymous. The anonymous generally never put personal details about themselves on social networks. "But the other group consists of those who are externally controlled. For such people any open media acts as a place to talk about themselves and they love being in that public space. Moreover, social networks give internet users the courage to say whatever they want because they can avoid face-to-face contact. Even if there is a response, it is muted because because it is not direct and they can escape confrontation," says Thomas.

Read the original article published in Bangalore Mirror here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/facebook-my-lousy-boyfriend

Facebook, Google deny spying access

praskrishna — 2013-07-02T10:18:48Z

The CEOs of Facebook and Google on Saturday categorically denied that the US National Security Agency had "direct access" to their company servers for snooping on Gmail and Facebook users. But both acknowledged that the companies complied with the 'lawful' requests made by the US government and shared user data with sleuths.

The article by Javed Anwer was published in the Times of India on June 9, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

In a post titled "What the ...?" Google's official blog, CEO Larry Page wrote, "We have not joined any program that would give the US governmentâ€”or any other governmentâ€”direct access to our servers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday."

A few hours later, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded. "Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers... We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday," he wrote on his page at the social media site.

According to a few PowerPoint slides allegedly leaked by an NSA official, nine technology companies - Google, AOL, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype, Facebook, YouTube and PalTalk - are providing the US government easy access to user data. While all companies have denied being part anything called PRISM, Facebook and Google have been most vocal about it.

A few hours after Facebook and Google statements, the New York Times said in a report that technology companies had "opened discussions with national security officials about developing technical methods to more efficiently and securely share the personal data of foreign users".

"In some cases, they (companies) changed their computer systems to do so," noted the NYT report.

The statements by the CEOs have done little to allay privacy fears. "The denials from the companies look highly coordinated, including similar phrases in all their responses. I don't think they are lying outright, though the NYT report suggests that they are telling a half-truth. They may not provide the US government 'direct access' to all their servers, but may be providing indirect access, or may just be responding to very broad FISA orders," said Pranesh Prakash, a policy director with Centre for Internet and Society in India.

On Friday US president Barack Obama had tacitly acknowledged NSA surveillance programmes aimed at non-US citizens. "You can't have a hundred per cent security and also then have a hundred per cent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we're going to have to make some choices as a society," he told reporters in the US.

Page and Zuckerberg also called on the governments to be more open about surveillance programmes. "The level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish," wrote Page.

Added Zuckerberg, "We strongly encourage all governments to be much more transparent about all programs aimed at keeping the public safe. It's the only way to protect everyone's civil liberties and create the safe and free society we all want over the long term."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-javed-anwer-june-9-2013-facebook-google-deny-spying-access

Facebook Shares 10 Key Facts about Free Basics. Here's What's Wrong with All 10 of Them.

sunil — 2015-12-25T14:59:10Z

Shweta Sengar of Catch News spoke to Sunil Abraham about the recent advertisement by Facebook titled "What Net Neutrality Activists won't Tell You or, the Top 10 Facts about Free Basics". Sunil argued against the validity of all the 'top 10 facts'.

Facebook has rebranded internet.org as Free Basics. After suffering from several harsh blows from the net neutrality activists in India, the social media behemoth is positioning a movement in order to capture user attention.

Apart from a mammoth two page advertisement on Free Basics on 23 December in a leading English daily, we spotted a numerous hoardings across the capital.

Unlike Facebook, Wikipedia has a rather upfront approach for raising funds. You must have noticed a pop-up as you open Wikipedia when they are in need of funds. What Facebook has done is branded Free Basics as 'free' as the basic needs of life.

The newspaper advertisement by Facebook was aimed at clearing all the doubts about Free Basics. The 10 facts highlighted a connected India and urging users to take the "first step towards digital equality."

In an interview with Catch, Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Bangalore based research organisation, the Centre for Internet and Society, shared his thoughts on the controversial subject. Abraham countered each of Facebook's ten arguments. Take a look:

01 Free basics is open to any carriers. Any mobile operator can join us in connecting India.

Sunil Abraham: Free Basics was initially exclusive to only one telecom operator in most markets that it was available in.

The non-exclusivity was introduced only after activists in India complained. But now the arrangement is exclusive to Free Basics as a walled garden provider. But discrimination harms remain until other Internet services can also have what Facebook has from telecom operators ie. free access to their destinations.

02 We do not charge anyone anything for Free Basics. Period.

SA: As Bruce Schneier says "surveillance is the business model of the Internet". Free basics users are subject to an additional layer of surveillance ie. the data retention by the Facebook proxy server. Just as Facebook cannot say that they are ignoring Data Protection law because Facebook is a free product - they cannot say that Free Basics can violate network neutrality law because it is a free service. For ex. Flipkart should get Flipkart Basic on all Indian ISPs and Telcos.

03 We do not pay for the data consumed in Free Basics. Operators participate because the program has proven to bring more people online. Free Basics has brought new people onto mobile networks on average over 50% faster since launching the service.

SA: Facebook has been quoting statistics as evidence to influence the policy formulation process. But we need the absolute numbers and we also need them to be independently verifiable. At the very least we need the means to cross verify these numbers with numbers that telcos and ISPs routinely submit to TRAI.

Theoretical harms must be addressed through net neutrality regulation. For example, you don't have to build a single, centralised database of all Indian citizens to know that it can be compromised - from a security design perspective centralisation is always a bad idea. Gatekeeping powers given to any powerful entity will be compromised. While evidence is useful, regulation can already begin based on well established regulatory principles. After scientific evidence has been made available - the regulation can be tweaked.

04 Any developer or publisher can have their content on Free Basics. There are clear technical specs openly published here ... and we have never rejected an app or publisher who has me these tech specs.

SA: Again this was only done as a retrospective fix after network neutrality activists in India complained about exclusive arrangements. For example, the music streaming service Hungama is not a low-bandwidth destination but since it was included the technical specifications only mentions large images and video files. Many of the other sites are indistinguishable from their web equivalents clearly indicating that this was just an afterthought. At the moment Free Basics has become controversial so most developers and publishers are not approaching them so there is no way for us to verify Facebook's claim.

05 Nearly 800 developers in India have signed their support for Free Basics.

SA: I guess these are software developers working in the services industry who don't see themselves as potential competition to Facebook or any of the services within Free Basics. Also since Facebook as been completely disingenuous when it comes to soliciting support for their campaigns it is very hard to believe these claims. It has tried to change the meaning of the phrase "net neutrality" and has framed the debate in an inaccurate manner - therefore I could quite confidently say that these developers must have been fooled into supporting Free Basics.

06 It is not a walled garden: In India, 40% of people who come online through Free Basics are paying for data and accessing the full internet within the first 30 days. In the same time period, 8 times more people are paying versus staying on just

SA: Again, no absolute numbers and also no granularity in the data that makes it impossible for anyone to verify these numbers. Also there is no way to compare these numbers to access options that are respectful of network neutrality such as equal rating. If the numbers are roughly the same for equal rating and zero-rating then there is no strong case to be made for zero-rating.

07 Free Basics is growing and popular in 36 other countries, which have welcomed the program with open arms and seen the enormous benefits it has brought.

SA: Free Basics was one of the most controversial topics at the last Internet Governance Forum. A gratis service is definitely going to be popular but that does not mean forbearance is the only option for the regulator. In countries with strong civil society and/or a strong regulator, Free Basics has ran into trouble. Facebook has been able to launch Free Basics only in jurisdictions where regulators are still undecided about net neutrality. India and Brazil are the last battle grounds for net neutrality and that is why Facebook is spending advertising dollar and using it's infrastructure to win the global south.

08 In a recent representative poll, 86% of Indians supported Free Basics by Facebook, and the idea that everyone deserves access to free basic internet services.

SA: This is the poll which was framed in alarmist language where Indian were asked to choose between perpetuating or bridging the digital divide. This is a false choice that Facebook is perpetuating - with forward-looking positive Network Neutrality rules as advocated by Dr. Chris Marsden it should be possible to bridge digital divide without incurring any free speech, competition, innovation and diversity harms.

09 In the past several days, 3.2 million people have petitioned the TRAI in support of Free Basics.

SA: Obviously - since Free Basics is better than nothing. But the real choice should have been - are you a) against network neutrality ie. would you like to see Facebook play gatekeeper on the Internet OR b) for network neutrality ie. would you like to see Free Basics forced to comply with network neutrality rules and expand access without harms to consumers and innovators.

10 There are no ads in the version of Facebook on Free Basics. Facebook produces no revenue. We are doing this to connect India, and the benefits to do are clear.

SA: As someone who has watched the Internet economy since the first dot com boom - it is absolutely clear that consumer acquisition is as important as revenues. They are doing it to connect people to Facebook and as a result some people will also connect to the Internet. But India is the last market on the planet where the walled garden can be bigger than the Internet, and therefore Facebook is manipulating the discourse through it's dominance of the networked public sphere.

Bravo to TRAI and network neutrality activists for taking Facebook on.

Originally published by Catch News, on December 24, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook-shares-10-key-facts-about-free-basics-heres-whats-wrong-with-all-10-of-them

Facebook launches Internet.org in India

praskrishna — 2015-03-13T02:27:14Z

Joins hands with Reliance Communications. Move spurs neutrality concerns.

The article by Lalatendu Mishra and Sriram Srinivasan was published in the Hindu on February 11, 2015. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Facebook on Tuesday announced a tie-up with Reliance Communications to launch Internet.org in India, bringing to the land of a billion-plus people a service that the social media giant says helps affordable Internet access but whose critics disapprove its restrictiveness.

India now becomes the sixth destination for Internet.org, a Facebook-led initiative envisaged about a year-and-a-half back with six other founding partners, including Samsung and Qualcomm. The service has already been launched in Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia and Ghana.

Facebook’s 30-year-old founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the development on his social network. He posted, “More than a billion people in India don’t have access to the internet. That means they can’t enjoy the same opportunities many of us take for granted, and the entire world is robbed of their ideas and creativity.”

The tie-up gives subscribers of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications who have Internet-enabled handsets free access to 38 Websites – a mix of news, music, education, weather and health sites. The list includes Facebook, Wikipedia, and Reliance Astrology. The lone search option available is Microsoft’s Bing. They can be accessed via an Android app.

For the time being, the service has gone live in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. The pan-India launch is planned in three months. Nearly 70% of Reliance’s customers who have Internet-enabled phones but are now offline are expected to avail themselves of this service.

Gurdeep Singh, CEO, Consumer Business, Reliance Communications, said during the launch in Mumbai, “This partnership will not only accelerate internet penetration In India, it will also open new socioeconomic opportunities to users in fields like education, information and commerce.”

Chris Daniels, Vice President of Internet.org at Facebook, said, “This is a big step forward in our efforts to connect every one in India to the internet and help people discover new tools and information that can create more jobs and opportunities.”

Critics, however, see little altruism in Internet.org. Rather, what they see is a huge challenge to the neutrality of the Internet. Their point is that a selective access to the Internet makes it extremely difficult for rivals not part of the service.

Lawyer Prashant Reddy said, “It will be interesting to see how Trai (the regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) handles such deals, and whether the market will accuse both these players of violating network neutrality.”

He said, “Also one needs to see how public understands the principles of Net neutrality.” His point is: there is no outcry when data packs are offered free but controversy erupts when a service provider tries to charge subscribers for services, as in the case of Airtel recently.

Internet activist and director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, Ethan Zuckerman, told The Hindu in an email interview that "If Facebook were donating millions or billions to upgrade infrastructure - or even to lobby mobile phone carriers for cheaper data services for all - it would be less troubling. But instead, they're offering a limited version of the internet, one that centers on Facebook, to low-income internet users. That raises real concerns that this is not a charitable effort, but a customer acquisition strategy."

Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director of the Bengaluru-based research and advocacy organisation The Centre for Internet & Society, said he is worried about the long-term consequences. “The Internet.org model violates most definitions of net neutrality, as it provides access to a limited menu of services claiming to be the Internet — being based on a cable TV model — rather than providing actual access to the Internet at a low cost.”

He said, “Since it is an exclusive deal with a single mobile service provider, it also calls into question the genuineness of Mark Zuckerberg’s publicly-stated motive of bringing the Internet to a billion people and bridging the digital divide.”

It isn’t clear how Facebook and Reliance would bear the cost of the free service. What Facebook said in its annual report of 2013 is that it would continue to invest in projects even if it doesn’t have a clear path to monetisation, “such as our commitment to the Internet.org initiative to increase global Internet access.”

Even prior to the internet.org initiative, companies such as Facebook and Twitter have individually worked out deals with telecom companies in fast-growing markets to make their services free for subscribers. Research firm eMarketer had forecast India to be the fastest-growing geography for Facebook in terms of users in 2014.

(With inputs from Sanjay Vijayakumar)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-lalatendu-mishra-sriram-srinivasan-february-11-2015-hindu-facebook-launches-internet-org-in-india

Facebook is no charity, and the ‘free’ in Free Basics comes at a price

praskrishna — 2016-01-30T11:32:47Z

Who could possibly be against free internet access? This is the question that Mark Zuckerberg asks in a piece for the Times of India in which he claims Facebook’s Free Basics service “protects net neutrality”.

Free Basics is the rebranded Internet.org, a Facebook operation where by partnering with local telecoms firms in the developing world the firm offers free internet access – limited only to Facebook, Facebook-owned WhatsApp, and a few other carefully selected sites and services.

Zuckerberg was responding to the strong backlash that Free Basics has faced in India, where the country’s Telecom Regulatory Authority recently pulled the plug on the operation while it debates whether telecoms operators should be allowed to offer different services with variable pricing, or whether a principle of network neutrality should be enforced.

Not content to await the regulator’s verdict, Facebook has come out swinging. It has paid for billboards, full-page newspaper ads and television ad campaigns to try to enforce the point that Free Basics is good for India’s poor. In his Times piece, Zuckerberg goes one step further – implying that those opposing Free Basics are actually hurting the poor.

He argued that “for every ten people connected to the internet, roughly one is lifted out of poverty”. Without reference to supporting research, he instead offers an anecdote about a farmer called Ganesh from Maharashtra state. Ganesh apparently used Free Basics to double his crop yields and get a better deal for his crops.

Zuckerberg stressed that “critics of free basic internet services should remember that everything we’re doing is about serving people like Ganesh. This isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests”.

Zuckerberg’s indignation illustrates either how little he understands about the internet, or that he’s willing to say anything to anyone listening.

This is not a charity

First, despite his claims to the contrary Free Basics clearly runs against the idea of net neutrality by offering access to some sites and not others. While the service is claimed to be open to any app, site or service, in practice the submission guidelines forbid JavaScript, video, large images, and Flash, and effectively rule out secure connections using HTTPS. This means that Free Basics is able to read all data passing through the platform. The same rules don’t apply to Facebook itself, ensuring that it can be the only social network, and (Facebook-owned) WhatsApp the only messaging service, provided.

Yes, Free Basics is free. But how appealing is a taxi company that will only take you to certain destinations, or an electricity provider that will only power certain home electrical devices? There are alternative models: in Bangladesh, Grameenphone gives users free data after they watch an advert. In some African countries, users get free data after buying a handset.

Second, there is no convincing body of peer-reviewed evidence to suggest internet access lifts the world’s poor out of poverty. Should we really base telecommunications policy on an anecdote and a self-serving industry report sponsored by the firm that stands to benefit? India has a literacy rate of 74%, of which a much smaller proportion speak English well enough to read it. Literate English speakers and readers tend not to be India’s poorest citizens, yet it’s English that is the predominant language on the web. This suggests Free Basics isn’t suited for India’s poorest, who’d be better served by more voice and video services.

Third, the claim that Free Basics isn’t in Facebook’s commercial interest is the most outrageous. In much the same way that Nestlé offered free baby formula in the 1970s as development assistance to low-income countries – leaving nursing mothers unable to produce sufficient milk themselves – Free Basics is likely to impede commercial alternatives.

By offering free access Free Basics disrupts the market, allowing Facebook to gain a monopoly that can benefit from the network effects of a growing user base. Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, in India, has aptly noted that expanding audience and consumer bases have long been as important as revenues for internet firms. Against Facebook’s immensely deep pockets and established user-base, homegrown competitors are thwarted before they even begin.

Poverty consists of more than just no internet

India will not always have low levels of internet access, this is not the issue – in fact Indian internet penetration growth rates are relatively high. Instead the company sees Free Basics as a means to establish a bridgehead into the country, establishing a monopoly before other firms move in.

There is decades of research about how best to help farmers like Ganesh: access to good quality education, healthcare, and water all could go a long way. But even if we see internet access as one of the key needs to be met, why would we then offer a restricted version?

In presenting Free Basics as an act of altruism Zuckerberg tries to silence criticism. “Who could possibly be against this?”, he asks:

What reason is there for denying people free access to vital services for communication, education, healthcare, employment, farming and women’s rights?

That is the right question, but Free Basics is the wrong answer. Let’s call a spade a spade and see Free Basics as an important part of the business strategy of one of the world’s largest internet corporations, rather than as a selfless act of charity.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-conversation-january-11-2016-facebook-is-no-charity

Facebook goes out all guns blazing in push for Free Basics, Net neutrality advocates cry foul

praskrishna — 2015-12-29T15:32:19Z

Facebook's media onslaught to garner support for its controversial Free Basics program is almost inescapable. Multi-page ads in national dailies, outdoor hoardings, television spots and perhaps the most effective of them all - Facebook notifications.

The blog post was published in IBN Live on December 29, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, took out time during his paternity leave to pen an op-ed in The Times of India in which he tried to drum up support for the Free Basics service that offers people without the Internet free access to a handful of websites through mobile phones.

"If we accept that everyone deserves access to the Internet, then we must surely support free basic Internet services," Zuckerberg wrote, comparing the Internet to a library, public health care and education.

Zuckerberg said he was surprised that there is such a big debate around Free Basics in India.

The debate on Net neutrality stirred across India after Airtel decided to charge separately for Internet-based calls but withdrew it later after people protested. Internet activists and experts flayed the operator for 'Airtel Zero' service along with Facebook's Internet.org service, later renamed as 'Free Basics.'

Net neutrality implies that equal treatment be accorded to all Internet traffic and no priority be given to an entity or company based on payment to content or service providers such as telecom companies, which is seen as discriminatory.

Zuckerberg's personal appeal comes amid fierce criticism from Net neutrality activists who say Free Basics violates the principle that the whole Internet should be available to all and unrestricted by any one company.

In an op-ed response in The Times of India by Medianama's Nikhil Pahwa, who is also a volunteer with savetheinternet.in that is spearheading the campaign for Net neutrality and against Free Basics, asked why Facebook didn't opt for an option that doesn't violate Net neutrality and "why has Facebook chosen the current model for Free Basics, which gives users a selection of around a hundred sites (including a personal blog and a real estate company homepage), while rejecting the option of giving the poor free access to the open, plural and diverse web?"

Countries like the US, Chile, Netherlands and Brazil have already adopted Net Neutrality that doesn't allow discrimination of Internet content or charge users differently based on the content, site, or platform they consume, the debate is still raging in India with the last date for comments on a paper floated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that is open for comments till December 30 and counter comments till January 7.

Facebook is using the might of its about 140 million user base in India urging them to send messages to TRAI supporting Free Basics.

A few companies such as Truecaller is attempting to counter Facebook's push by sending out messages to its millions of users in India asking them to petition TRAI against Facebook's Free Basics.

Earlier this month the TRAI ordered Reliance Communications, the sole mobile operator for the Free Basics in India, to suspend it temporarily.

Pranesh Prakash, policy director at Centre for Internet and Society, believes that Free Basics isn't exactly the evil that opponents picture it as. "In the absence of free Internet, Free Basics is a great enabler of freedom of speech. We ought to keep that in mind when asking for a ban," he said.

Meanwhile, Facebook's Internet.org vice president Chris Daniels, in a Reddit AMA said that Facebook was open to scrutiny of the process by any third party agency like IAMAI or NASSCOM and "We'd also be happy to have Twitter, Google+, etc on the platform which many people have asked for."

Earlier, in July this year the Department of Telecom panel on net neutrality has opposed projects like Facebook's Internet.org, which allow access to certain websites without mobile data charges, while suggesting that similar plans such as Airtel Zero be allowed with prior clearance from TRAI.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook-goes-out-all-guns-blazing-in-push-for-free-basics-net-neutrality-advocates-cry-foul

Fab to Fabless: Understanding the Process of Chip Manufacturing (Interviews with Semiconductor Industry - Part 2)

maggie — 2014-12-26T12:06:48Z

This is the second of a four-part blog series highlighting findings from a small sample of interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. These industry insiders was approached for the intent of understanding expert knowledge on the process of integrated circuit design. This post explores the process of chip manufacturing and the foundry business model.

See the first blog post here.

Studies have shown that Taiwan's integrated circuit manufacturing sector have shown spatial and industrial knowledge spillover, resulting in "increased information diffusion, interaction and communication, innovation, and intellectual capital.". Market research company IC Insights found that Taiwanese and Chinese companies represented five of the eight fastest-growing fabless integrated circuit ("IC") suppliers in 2013.

The Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace project is looking at the accessibility of networked communication technologies in the mass market within the sub-100 dollar range. This has resulted in a narrowing of the research scope to the mobile phone due to the pervasiveness of the mobile for accessing Internet, as understood by exploring the trends in technology usage models as explored in Part I of this blog post series: Trends and Changes in Technology (Part I of IV).

The need to understand the full story of the mobile phone production led CIS to Taiwan to understand the beginnings of the manufacturing process - the development of an integrated chip. The interviewed professionals all represented fabless IC semiconductor design companies which operated via a foundry business model where the actual fabrication is outsourced.

According to one expert whose company earned 50% of its revenue from mobile chipsets alone, the process of the mobile phone manufacturing begins at the fabless design stage, where fabless IC design companies design a chip following consultation with the fabricators to specify the mechanical constraints of the process (the size of the die, the minimum size of the wiring line, etc.) to ensure design requirements are met, and to negotiate the costs of production. Another interviewee highlighted that during this design phase, there are three clear goals: 1) Upgrade performance, 2) Reduce cost by integrating features, and 3) Reduce power consumption.

These particular companies provided insight to some of the commonly licensed technology that went into a smartphone chipset. This included the central processing unit (CPU) from ARM Holdings, who in 2010 held 95% of the CPU marketshare in smartphone technology, and have only increased since then. One of the interviewed companies also uses the graphics processing unit (GPU) intellectual property from Imagination Technologies, which after Qualcomm had the 2nd largest market share of IP for personal devices in 2013. Qualcomm who owns the most patents to the 3G standard with over 250 licenses in its CDMA portfolio has made considerable revenue gains thus far, but some analysts predict due to a transition into 4G technology without the same dominant 3G portfolio, they will lose their dominant market position.

Having taken into account these IP into the design process, the design is then sent to fabricators such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry (TSMC) who in 2013 owned at least 50% of the world's global maker share in fabrication, and others like the United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and Global Foundries). According to the interviewee, the fabrication process requires about 2-3 months.

This foundry business model is a result of increased efficiency and division of labour. Fabrication plants require large amounts of investments into manufacturing facilities. According to interviewees, one would have to spend an average of 5-10 billion USD to built a fabrication plant now. Since plants like TSMC exists, semiconductor industries can now focus on their area of expertise, which is design and customer relationship, and optimize their synergistic relationship for gains for all.

One of the recent revolutionary developments which have contributed to low-cost smartphone manufacturing has been the turnkey solution chipset, which includes the hardware reference design, the printed circuit board, the software, and instructions for how to create a mobile phone. This turnkey solution, amongst other electronic parts, are sent for white box packaging, then shipped to a distributor like WPG Holdings who are the largest electronics distributor in Asia. WPG and others will then distribute these chips and other related products to their customers, the smartphone manufacturers. This entire production cue takes about 3-4 months.

The turnkey solution as mentioned before vastly contrasts the traditional manufacturing process of a mobile phone, where a chip could be designed, given to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) who would then design all the remaining parts. There used to be a very clear division of labour. Now, one interviewee explained, manufacturers will "buy a turnkey solution, open a factory, take a chassis (case), screw it all together, and sell it. This is what's driven the demand, and that's what created this low cost-market."

According to our interviewees, the low-cost production of this turnkey chip solution is the reason how so many of the phones in the sub-$100 dollar market exist today.

P.127 of Tsai, Diana H. A. “Knowledge Spillovers and High-Technology Clustering: Evidence from Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park.” Contemporary Economic Policy 23.1 (2005): 116–128. Print.

IC Insights. “Taiwanese and Chinese Companies Represented Five of Eight Fastest Growing Top-25 Fabless IC Suppliers in 2013.” IC Insights. N.p., 7 May 2014. Web. 3 Sept. 2014.

Morgan, Timothy Prickett. “ARM Holdings Eager for PC and Server Expansion.” The Register, Feb. 2011. Web.

Trefis Team. “Why Qualcomm’s Royalty Rate Will Continue To Decline.” Forbes, 10 June 2014. Web.

Wang, Lisa. “TSMC Eyes 50% Global Market Share.” 26 Mar. 2014: 13. Print.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/interviews-with-semi-conductor-industry-professionals-in-taiwan-2