Flipkart pulls out of partnership with Bharti Airtel on Airtel Zero

In a major boost to net neutrality in India, e-commerce major Flipkart has announced that it has pulled out of its partnership with Bharti Airtel on its open marketing platform, Airtel Zero.

The company said it is committed to the larger cause of net neutrality in India and will be internally discussing over the next few days, the details of "actions we will take to support the cause".

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel had earlier this month launched Airtel Zero to allow customers to access a variety of mobile applications for free while the data charges will be paid by the application providers.

Flipkart was reported to be the first company to sign up for the platform and faced a massive backlash for the same on both social media and app stores, where its app was downrated by thousands of users.

Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal, who had earlier tweeted in defence of Airtel Zero, saying "When foreign companies do it in India - Innovation. Indians do it - Violation. #NetNeutralityDiscrimination?", took a U-turn on his stance.

Below is the full statement released by company:

"We at Flipkart have always strongly believed in the concept of net neutrality, for we exist because of the Internet. Over the past few days, there has been a great amount of debate, both internally and externally, on the topic of zero rating, and we have a deeper understanding of the implications. Based on this, we have decided on the following:

- We will be walking away from the ongoing discussions with Airtel for their platform Airtel Zero

- We will be committing ourselves to the larger cause of Net Neutrality in India. We will be internally discussing over the next few days, the details of actions we will take to support the cause

- We will be working towards ensuring that the spirit of net neutrality is upheld and applied equally to all companies in India irrespective of the size or the service being offered and there is absolutely no discrimination whatsoever."

Activists and consumers have taken to social media to voice their concerns about Airtel Zero and Internet.org (for which Facebook has tied up with Reliance Communications in India) violating the principle of net neutrality by offering services to some and not equally to all.

Bharti Airtel has rubbished the claims.

"While opinions from critics of the product are very welcome, it's pertinent that we set the record straight. Since we announced Airtel Zero on April 6, over 150 start-ups with a majority being small start-ups have contacted to enquire about the product," Bharti Airtel Director Consumer Business Srini Gopalan said earlier.

More than one lakh internet users so far have already expressed discontent about the product via emails to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to save net neutrality through the website www.savetheinternet.in.

A government-appointed panel is looking into these concerns and is likely to submit its report in May, while the matter is being separately studied by Trai, which has already got submissions from over one lakh netizens in support of net neutrality in India.

Free Internet advocates and start-ups see the move as a violation of net neutrality and one that could even "lead to monopolisation by a few and squeezing out of small companies".

(With PTI inputs)