The Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce and Industry has appealed to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) not to deviate from Net neutrality principle under any circumstances.
In a statement issued here on Wednesday, president of the chamber N. Jegatheesan and senior president S. Rethinavelu alleged that certain influential telecom providers were lobbying with TRAI to allow them to block applications and websites with the objective of extracting more money from users.
This would mean an “extreme violation” of Net neutrality, the chamber said, and strongly objected the move to snatch Net sovereignty of people.
The statement said that any rule change favouring a few Internet Service Providers by TRAI would undermine the principle of equality before law and a pay-to-play Internet would distress millions of users as ISPs could block free surfing. It would also affect lakhs of start-ups.
The chamber drew the attention of TRAI to large e-tailers, who had been functioning with the sole aim of displacing small retailers across the country.
With no other alternative, small retailers were also moving to e-selling.
In this context, any deviation in Net neutrality would only help big e-tailers and promote emergence of crony capitalism, the chamber said.
