The Continuation Of A Story: The TRAI Side On Facebook’s Free Basics

Last time we checked, Facebook has been asking for its Indian users for support on its Free Basics initiative. Fans didn't disappoint and gave their wholehearted support to the social network. However, the Telecom Regulatory Authority in India (TRAI) is not satisfied and instead is questioning the legitimacy of the so-called support. The support in question is Facebook's claim of 11 million Indian users who are supposedly supporting the said initiative.

The reason TRAI is questioning the support the social media has gathered is because the regulators are having a hard time contacting these supporters; in fact, they couldn't be contacted at all. December last year, TRAI even went on to invite comments on their paper tackling the differential pricing of data services that included the much-debated Free Basics.

During this time, to gather support, Facebook urged its consumers to show support for its project by sending a template email to TRAI. The social network even let their users give a missed call to a number that will send an email to TRAI on their behalf. This method although seems a bit crude is a common marketing tool in the country.

However, according to TRAI, these auto-generated emails sent to them do not answer any of the four questions they have asked and don't even give any reasons on why they support the Free Basics project. Because of dissatisfaction, TRAI has made a move to contact some of these responders; however, these emails bounced back. TRAI was also given access to the responders' contact numbers, but it said that contacting them via phone call or text is already the social media's responsibility.

Then during the first day of 2016, TRAI reached out to Facebook telling it to ask all the responders to answer specific questions and to guide them into TRAI's consultation paper. Five days later, the social media replied saying that it has already contacted itsr users about the recent requirement of TRAI but said it felt that the original responses made by its users have already addressed the issue. The social media also didn't have any email address for those who made the missed calls to TRAI.

Furthermore, the social network also claimed in its letter to TRAI that it has 11 million people send their emails to TRAI. A day later, TRAI responded saying it is disappointed and even went on to question the methods done by Facebook. TRAI even said that the social media could have just sent those participants a text message with a link to its consultation paper.

TRAI also said it only received 544,000 emails from the domain "facebookmail.com" and another 1.35 million emails from the domain "@supportfreebasics.in." The regulators also asked Facebook to provide details whether it has communicated the message to all its users, as well as the necessary information on how and when it was done. The deadline for the requirement has passed, and TRAI claims that it hasn't received any response from the social network since then.