Internet.org Welcomes Third-Party Developers with Certain Bandwidth Restrictions

The highly anticipated announcement is finally here – Facebook’s project Internet.org is officially open to third-party developers. This development was officially announced on Facebook’s media site and is accompanied by an informative video featuring the company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. In the announcement, Zuckerberg continues to throw his weight behind net neutrality, a principle that was upheld recently by the American Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

As an initiative aimed at broadening internet access, the Facebook-led Internet.org has certain guidelines and restrictions in place. One of which is the exclusion of heavy bandwidth applications such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and videos. This restriction aligns with the project’s core mission – minimal bandwidth use to ensure optimal service delivery to people in rural and developing economies. Furthermore, to maintain the caliber of the platform, Internet.org will oversee app approval and management.

A depiction of Internet.org’s proxy setup.

With regards to security, the inclusion of HTTPS – a protocol for secure communication over a computer network – is ruled out for users connecting via the web. This decision, while raising minor security concerns from experts, stays true to the goal of providing uncomplicated internet service with minimum bandwidth usage. Internet.org will instead, function as a web proxy, allowing for standard traffic flow. This complies with one of the elements of net neutrality, a cause both Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wholeheartedly support.

However, as reported by Verge, this setup could present some security challenges for secure services looking to establish on the platform. Specifically, any web-based traffic on Internet.org will be visible not only to the Internet.org proxy, but also to all intermediaries between the platform and the remote server, a necessary part of the current proxy setup.

Advocates of Internet.org see it as a beacon of digital inclusion, providing invaluable internet access to the members of society who need it most. It will be interesting to see how this endeavor unfolds and adapts to meet security and net neutrality challenges.

Image source: Verge