Flipkart Pulls Out Of Airtel Zero To Protect Net Neutrality In India

© BCCL

While more and more Indian internet users coming together in support of net neutrality,Flipkart has become the first Indian online company to join the war. After facing a major backlash from users, the e-commerce mammoth has decided to stand for the cause of net neutrality by pulling out of Airtel’s Zero plan, which is Airtel’s first step towards violating net neutrality in India. 

With the announcement, Flipkart also shared this statement with the media – 

"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."

While this undoubtedly is a very motivating development, and strengthens the netizen’s stance against telecom majors, the major question that lurks is whether or not other telecom majors will join the war.