Parliament Standing Committee took views of internet companies and academia on Tuesday
On a day when the internet search major Google catapulted an Indian to the top position by making the IIT-Kharagpur grad Sundar Pichai its CEO, it also decided to skip deposing before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on net neutrality.
Net neutrality means that "internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favouring or blocking particular products or websites".
The California-based company, which along with other internet companies and academia, had been called by the panel on net neutrality to its gives inputs on the matter.
A person in the know said: "It (Google) chose not to turn up when it is an important voice in the whole net neutrality debate. In the US, they have been very openly supporting net neutrality. But in India, their practices indicate they seem to be supporting zero-rating. It seems they do not want to make their stand on the issue clear."
Wikipedia defines zero-rating as a practice of an internet service provider (ISP) not charging end customers for certain data transferred through its services by charging it to content providers.
Those who deposed before the committee on Tuesday include Facebook (FB), Flipkart, Microsoft (MS), Cleartrip, academician Vishal Mishra and others. In the past three meetings before this, the panel had invited Trai, civil society groups and telecom majors including Airtel, Vodafone and Idea.
According to a source, the panel posed some tough questions to FB, Flipkart and MS. For instance, he said, FB was asked why it had put misleading campaign on Internet.org. Flipkart was asked why it withdrew its alliance with Bharti Airtel for Airtel Zero.
Google did not respond to the queries sent to them by dna and Flipkart public relations executive also refused to comment on panel meeting.
Dr Mahesh Uppal, director of telecom consultancy firm ComFirst (India), said it would be difficult to speculate on why Google skipped the meeting but believes most stakeholders "were not in favour of a rigid approach to net neutrality".
"What is clear is that some of the significant telcos, content providers and internet companies are not in favour of a very rigid approach to net neutrality. They do not see themselves on the same page with the more radical advocators of pure net neutrality," he said.
G Krishna Kumar, Bangalore-based telecom executive, said Google will eventually have to take a stand on net neutrality. He, however, expected some haziness in what will finally emerge on the subject.
"There will be some haziness on it and it is not going to be resolved in a hurry. Even in the US and Europe, they have not been able to come out with solution for it till now," he said.
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