India blocks Facebook's Free Basics app

Regulators ban service that offered limited internet access to low-income people on net neutrality laws.

Mark Zuckerberg says he will continue to campaign for the Free Basics project [Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters]

Indian regulators have effectively blocked Free Basics, a controversial Facebook online service that sought to bring free access to a limited version of the social network and other sites to the country's poorest people.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Monday outlawed charging different prices for downloading different kinds of internet content.
The ruling, which regulators said was guided by the principles of net neutrality, is a major setback for Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, who had lobbied hard for the programme as part of a campaign to expand Internet access to billions of people around the world.
Yet, it is a victory for critics who argued that Facebook's Free Basics programme gave an unfair advantage to some internet services over others