Alibaba is considering providing free Internet in India

Chinese company Alibaba is considering providing free Internet in India and is currently in negotiations with telecom operators and Wi-Fi providers in the country. According to a company’s official, cited by Business Insider, Alibaba is trying ‘to offer lower cost data to users and better connectivity, even free of cost connectivity’, and is looking at specific regions, as ‘in India not every state is suffering from connectivity problem so we will focus more on providing this kind of services to states that are suffering more and also we will have comprehensive analysis on already existing consumers who will actually need this kind of service’. It remains to be seen what kind of Internet services the company will provide and whether there will be any implications for the principle of net neutrality, which India has been strongly advocating for (through, for example, banning Facebook’s Free Basics services).