5 apps that offer free internet in exchange for ads

With 4G taking hold in emerging markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines, mobile connectivity will soon be the norm across the globe. Smartphones are becoming cheaper too, as more and more global brands enter new markets and homegrown devices rise to the challenge.

There’s no doubt that access to information, goods and services through the mobile internet can significantly improve people’s livelihoods, especially in remote areas. But even if devices are affordable, the cost of data subscriptions is not trivial, and low-income households may have difficulty paying for growing data usage.

This is a dilemma, since creators of apps and services, in turn, are dependent on an ever-growing user base.

App and content creators are therefore devising new mechanisms to lower the entrance barrier for new customers. Often this involves offering free data – also called “zero-rated” data – to access services in exchange for being exposed to ads. In variations of the concept, data costs are covered through brand sponsorships or subsidies.

What makes apps with zero-rated offerings controversial is that they typically use slogans like “free internet access for the next billion people,” and target low-income populations across the globe, while downplaying their marketing, upselling, and data-collecting objectives. However, there are key differences in how these models operate, depending on who carries the cost, how much data is included, which sites and services can be accessed, and at which point and in which form an ad or an upsell occurs.

Here are five examples of mobile apps which attract users with the promise of free data.

1. Internet.org

Internet.org is perhaps the most widely known app in this category, because it’s created by Facebook.

Intenet.org promises “to connect the two thirds of the world that doesn’t have internet access. The app is available in several emerging-market countries, including India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Pakistan. In each country, it partners with a number of local services and mobile carriers. Users can download the Internet.org app and access content provided by these partner services – and Facebook – without paying for the data. Zero-rated access to these services is unlimited.

The details of how Internet.org works have been largely kept secret, but from what we know, it’s the mobile carriers that Facebook partners with which carry the data costs accumulated by users of its service – not the services included in the package.

XL Axiata, an Indonesian carrier, mentioned this business model as one reason why it chose not to offer Internet.org. In Indonesia, Internet.org ended up partnering with Indosat.

Internet.org has been met with global criticism. A central argument has been that Facebook alone selects the services it wants to include in the zero-rated package, along with Facebook itself. Internet.org has since changed that policy and is inviting anyone to apply, as long as they are able to meet the technical requirements. But major points of criticism remain with regard to privacy and security, based on the fact that Internet.org routes all browsing through a Facebook proxy, which doesn’t allow SSL or HTTPS encryption.