INTERNET.ORG

Internet.org

Internet.org is a partnership between social networking services company Facebook and six mobile phone companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Reliance and Qualcomm) that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries by increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access.

In an interesting breakthrough for mobile users in Pakistan, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the provision of free internet access for users in Pakistan through the social-media giant's new initiative Internet.org — which is currently available on Telenor network.

Internet.org is a latest Facebook enterprise through which the company aims at providing free internet access to people in developing countries. Before Pakistan, this project has been successfully launched in India and Bangladesh.

Internet.org was launched on August 20, 2013. At the time of launch, Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a ten-page whitepaper he had written elaborating on the vision. In the paper, he wrote that Internet.org was a further step in the direction of Facebook's past initiatives, such as Facebook Zero, to improve Internet access for people around the world. He also said that "connectivity is a human right." A Tech Crunch article about the launch compared Internet.org with Google's Project Loon.

After the launch of internet.org, Pakistan will become the seventh country to have this facility, while the service is expected to reach at least 100 countries by the end of next year.

Under the program, customers are expected to get access to as many as 20 website for free.

Though any publisher can apply to become part of internet.org program, but not everyone’s application is accepted as they have to follow certain rules/guidelines which might even mean compromising on the quality of their content.