Facebook’s plan to bring free internet access to developing countries ended up costing users dearly, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Facebook has partnered with mobile carriers to provide free access to the platform. Developing countries like Indonesia, Philippines and Pakistan are the targets of this free internet project. Its users, however, have been billed despite themselves by their mobile phone providers according to the Wall Street Journal.
Facebook’s Free Internet Project
Meta Connectivity offers this service called Free Basics since 2013 and lately, it serves more than 300 million people. It is supposed to provide users with free access to communication tools and health information. Internet users even had to access educational resources and other low-bandwidth services for free.
Free Internet charged at the highest price
Pakistan was reportedly charged the most for using this free Facebook internet for a total of $1.9 million. The Wall Street Journal reportedly saw an internal Facebook report. This company would have had wind for months of this billing of its customers for the use of Free Basics. This concern would have been called “leak”. It only happens when paid services start to overlap with what is free.
Most users served by the program also had prepaid phone plans. They therefore did not realize this bill for the use of mobile data. These users realized this whenthey ran out of funds.
The cause of this Free Basics billing
The problem seems to come from the software and the user interface of Facebook. Videos are not supposed to appear on Free Basics, as there is a charge to view them. Software glitches let them through. Notifications should notify the user, but they did not appear. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook found thatregarding 83% of unnecessary charges came from these videos.
Facebook reportedly said it has since solved this problem of billing for its free Internet. The company now notifies users upon registration of this billing. Viewing photos and videos will incur data charges. It should be noted that India banned the Free Basics service in 2016. It considers that it violates the values of net neutrality.