indo-asian news service, New Delhi/Bengaluru, April 14: E-commerce giant Flipkart Tuesday said it is “walking away” from the platform Airtel Zero and is committed to the larger cause of net neutrality.
“We at Flipkart have always strongly believed in the concept of net neutrality, for we exist because of the Internet,” a statement issued by the e-commerce company said.
“We will be walking away from the ongoing discussions with Airtel for their platform Airtel Zero. We will be committing ourselves to the larger cause of net neutrality in India. We will be internally discussing over the next few days, the details of actions we will take to support the cause,” the statement added.
Bharti Airtel recently launched Airtel Zero, an open marketing platform that will allow customers to access mobile applications at zero data charges. Flipkart stated that over the past few days, there has been a great amount of debate, “both internally and externally, on the topic of zero rating, and we have a deeper understanding of the implications”.
In a series of tweets, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal said he was all for #Net Neutrality.
“I spend time/money helping start-ups in India. I will never support things which suffocate innovation,” Bansal claimed in a tweet. Observing that zero rated apps for limited time were not against net neutrality, Bansal said such apps could not be sustained for long as costs and competition were very high. “Zero rating only reduces data costs for users. Fears of a telecom big brother emerging are unfounded. Choice wins. Always,” Bansal tweeted.
Following criticism by twitterati of its proposal to tie-up with Airtel, Flipkart said it was committed to the larger cause of net neutrality.
The company also said it will be working towards ensuring that the spirit of net neutrality is upheld and applied equally to all companies in India irrespective of the size or the service being offered.
