Facebook and Google Are Locking In African Customers With Freebie Deals

Facebook and Google have grandplans to bring the net to developing nations , ante up Lisa Rinna - sized lip service to selfless visions of global connectivity . But let ’s always call back that these US tech giantsare also gunning for new customersand the lucrative data that add up with them .

Both companies are rolling out programs in some African countries that give masses free cyberspace memory access — but the complimentary access is dependent upon on peopleusing their services . Their large - scale world - connectivity projects are cut to see to it that Facebook and Google become the go - to on - ramp for access internet :

Facebook , through its Internet.org program , offers a clean - down version of its social connection and some other situation for detached in what it enjoin is an workout to “ connect the two third base of the world that does n’t have cyberspace memory access ” .

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Google , in partnership with Kenyan nomadic phone firm Safaricom , is roll out its “ free zone ” in Kenya , where email and the Internet are uncommitted with no data charge , supply users stay within Google apps .

bring the cyberspace to the great unwashed without approach is a suitable , necessary pursuit , but hooking multitude into the ecosystems of US - free-base transnational bay window does n’t have to be part of the deal . The exclusive - freebie move could even potentiallydamage African tech innovation in the long run , as an advocacy group told Reuters :

“ You are giving people the melodic theme that they are associate to this free open world of the Internet but actually they are being interlace up in a incarnate digital prison , ” Niels ten Oever , head of digital at rights group Article 19 , told Reuters .

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“ Where will the African Mark Zuckerberg come from when they have no chance to compete ? ”

It ’s hard for caller to compete with Facebook and Google in the US ; in Africa , where these tech giants will have a huge leg up on local competition , it will be even harder . By establishing themselves as home foundation for the internet , Facebook and Google are elbowing control over the online experience of a continent by from would - be domestic entrepreneurs and local startups .

If Google and Facebook successfully shunt the majority of cyberspace traffic through their military service , entrepreneurs in countries like Kenya and Zambia could be at a major disadvantage trying to produce homegrown societal meshwork , message services , internet browser , search — all the thing freely dangle by the already - established US society .

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In res publica with technological culture that grew alongside the technical school rotation in the US , the products of companies like Google and Facebook have competition from local offerings . In South Korea , for instance , most people searchwith Naver , a search railway locomotive ground near Seoul . Not Google .

Relying on the same quondam exploitive global supply range to reach out freebies does n’t actually solve much . Good foreign aid is supposed to help oneself empower local hoi polloi to achieve their goal , not dump a top - down resolution onto a desperate population . It ’d be an encouraging signaling if Facebook and Google started create incentives for local tech endowment to recrudesce substitute , family - grown resolution . But of course , Facebook and Google are n’t conducting extraneous aid , good or bad . They ’re doing business .

[ Reuters ]

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