Flipkart pulls out of Airtel's net neutrality violating Airtel Zero

Indian e-tailing giant Flipkart seems to have relaised that it can no longer ignore the growing chorus against net neutrality. As just days after its CEO Sachin Bansal defended net neutrality 'violating' Airtel Zero, the company has pulled out of the service.

The news, first reported by NextBigWhat, has been confirmed by Flipkart spokesperson. In a statement to economictimes, the company said, "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."

The company added that based on this, it has 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."

Interestingly, just last week, after a deluge of tweets and blog posts panning the Indian e-commerce giant's alleged anti-net neutrality move, Bansal took to Twitter to express his view on net neutrality.

In a series of tweets, he said, "I'm for #NetNeutrality. I spend time/money helping startups in india. Will never support things which suffocate innovation."

Defending Airtel Zero, he posted, "0 (Zero) rated apps for limited time doesn't go against #NetNeutrality. Costs/competition are very high. Can't be sustained for long. 0 (Zero)rating only reduces data costs for users. Fears of a telecom big brother emerging are unfounded. Choice wins. Always."

Airtel had launched 'Airtel Zero,' a platform through which it will offer users free access to certain mobile apps on April 6. These apps will be from developers who have signed up with the company.

Airtel's Zero platform is against the principles of net neutrality as under it the company will offer an advantage to certain players in terms of cost of access and will even promote them. These players will most likely shell out a fee to get this favourable position. While Airtel will get an additional source of revenue, for service and app providers, it will be an additional expenditure just to ensure that they don't lag behind their competitors.