Truecaller joins the campaign against Facebook's Free Basics

According net neutrality principles, anyone should be able to access or provide services and content on the internet without any discrimination whatsoever

Caller identification app Truecaller, whose largest market is in India, has joined the campaign against Facebook’s Free Basics and called for adoption of net neutrality.

Net neutrality means access to free and unbiased internet for all. According its principles, anyone around the world should be able to access or provide services and content on the internet without any discrimination whatsoever.

On Wednesday, Truecaller prodded its 100-million users in India to write in support of net neutrality to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). India is its largest market followed by West Asia and North Africa.

“@Truecaller stands with India in this important topic, true internet is non-gated and democratic. We’ll make our users aware today,” Nari Zarringhalam, co-founder of Truecaller, said in a tweet late on Wednesday.

“Because we believe that all of the internet must be treated equally. Recent efforts by Free Basics attempt to interfere with that equal status, and is therefore against net neutrality. We request you to choose wisely and let the Trai know before it’s too late,” the message to Truecaller users said.

Notably, Facebook will emerge the largest competitor to Truecaller. The social media giant’s app called Hello offers similar service as Truecaller in identifying unknown numbers. Hello, which is in its pilot phase, has been launched in the US, Brazil and Nigeria.



Many Indian entrepreneurs had raised their voices against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s pet project Free Basics that vouches digital equality for all. Facebook had last week launched ‘Save Free Basics’ campaign asking its 130 million users in India to send a message to the Trai in support of Free Basics. According to Facebook, 3.2 million users have so far appealed to the Trai in favour of Free Basics.

The social media company has invited widespread criticism from the likes of internet entrepreneurs such as Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive of Paytm, and Dippak Khurana of Vserv.

Following a directive from the telecom regulator, Reliance Communications, Facebook’s Indian telecom partner for Free Basics, has suspended the service.