

Google Free Zone - Share and search on your phone with no data charges - xtimesninety
http://www.google.com.ph/intl/en/mobile/landing/freezone/stp.html

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rhplus
My first thought was that it sounded like a walled garden, basically AOL for
the mobile age, but then I saw this:

 _When you click on a link in the search results page, you don’t pay anything.
If you click on a link after this, you will need to pay for this data usage
(but don’t worry, before you are charged, you will see a warning page with the
option to sign up for a data plan if you want.) So for example, if you click
on a search link to a Wikipedia article, you won’t pay anything. But if you
click on a link within the article, you will be charged for the data costs
incurred loading that link._

That part is a really interesting. As the old saying goes, the first hit is
always free! It's freemium for data plans.

I wonder if the phone operators are keen on this because it's a way to get
people who were previously hesistant onto data plans.

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greenyoda
Currently, this is only offered by one mobile phone operator, and it's in the
Philippines:

[https://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](https://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2692512)

~~~
xtimesninety
Got this via SMS from Globe Telecom (PH): "Make sure that there are no running
applications connecting to the internet when using the service to avoid
incurring data charges"

Tried it in the Philippines and it works well. One possible problem here is
that for smartphones, users may be charged unexpectedly because background
apps that access the net. There should be a separate APN for Free Zone use so
users are sure they are not charged for normal data rates. I don't think users
will use this if they are uncertain that it is totally free.

~~~
jpdelatorre
Agree. They should use different APN.

Hope Smart would support it also

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dancarlson
I've got to say, from the headline I was expecting the exact opposite of what
this product turned out to be.

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primatology
Agreed, it's a terribly ambiguous name. Rather than "Google Free-Zone" (which
is read as "Google-Free Zone"), it should be a "Free Google Zone."

~~~
rhplus
In the linked page all references are "Free Zone powered by Google".

~~~
primatology
Ah, that just got updated.

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jrmg
People celebrating things like this is how net neutrality will die.

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Sander_Marechal
Exactly. Many people and companies (including Google) have fought tooth-and-
nail to stop scenarios similar to this on the wired space when the telco's
wanted to make websites pay for premium access from their users. And now
Google is offering to foot the bill for Free Zone users?

~~~
nck4222
Is Google really offering to foot the bill here? I don't see anywhere that
says this is sponsored/paid for by Google, although maybe I missed it.

It seems like the mobile carriers are footing the bill for this one. Or, for
now, one mobile carrier in the Philippines. It looked like it still costs
money for 99.5% of all mobile internet users.

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nathan_long
What would motivate the carrier to foot the bill for access to a single domain
if not some kind of sweetheart deal?

I think this bodes very badly for the internet. We need to maintain a model
where:

1) I pay for access 2) I access whatever sites I want

If anyone but me pays for my access, they're going to want to make back room
deals, make favored sites faster, make sites they don't like inaccessible, and
generally destroy the level playing field of the internet.

This is a first step. "Let's search for that on DuckDuckGo." "No, that costs
money. Google is free." Boom, innovation stamped out.

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zaptheimpaler
Facebook has had this for a while now. You can go to 0.facebook.com from a
supported carrier for free access.

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awad
Reminds me of Facebook Zero:

[http://qz.com/5180/facebooks-plan-to-find-its-next-
billion-u...](http://qz.com/5180/facebooks-plan-to-find-its-next-billion-
users-convince-them-the-internet-and-facebook-are-the-same/)

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dsushant
What are the implications for Free Zone users, Google, the carriers,
advertisers, websites, and phone OEM’s?

1\. Free Zone users can access their favorite Google communication tool (G+ /
Gmail) and search. 2\. Google gets to serve its ads on all these properties,
apart from valuable usage data and improving its products (the more people
search on Google, the better its results, etc). 3\. Carriers have two obvious
benefits – acquisition and/or retention of price sensitive users seeking free
access to G+/Gmail/Google Search and acquiring users for data plans. Another
benefit could be revenue sharing for lead generation via Google’s ads. The
wild card with the carriers is to launch sponsored browsing as a product –
where anyone could sponsor access to one/more web services. 4\. Advertisers
have a compelling incentive to allocate budgets for Google’s Ad Words product.
5\. SEO wars will be taken to a new level. 6\. The days of feature phones with
no internet access could be numbered. In the optimistic (for Google) scenario,
Free Zone will increase demand for low end internet enabled phones. And OEM’s
will gleefully comply.

Note - Extracted from my blog:
[http://u2697.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/sponsored-browsing-
and...](http://u2697.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/sponsored-browsing-and-the-
infinite-buffet/)

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PeterisP
There's a full page that describes a service that may be relevant to everyone,
but nowhere in the page does it say which 1% of the planet it applies to.

If you mean "specific operators in one country", then name them.

If you saying "mobile operators" while meaning "<1% of all mobile operators" -
that is simply lying. Well, 99% lying and 1% truth.

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denzil_correa
It sucks that this is just offered in the Philippines. I hope it catches on in
other parts of the world.

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ricardobeat
I don't. We need cheaper internet access, not subsidized content by providers.

~~~
denzil_correa
Both of those would not do any harm as well.

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ArekDymalski
The name for the service is very unfortunate one. II thought it's some kind of
anti-Google campaign.

~~~
opminion
That's one of the few cases where getting pedantic about the hyphen (or, in
this case, lack of it) solves ambiguity.

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tallanvor
This could be a nice way to help people save money on data usage, but there
are obvious problems beyond the fact that it's only available in the
Philippines:

1\. The offering is carrier specific and the language suggests that even if
this were expanded to other countries, you can only use it from home. 2\. Two-
factor authentication isn't supported, which most of us are probably using.
3\. You may be getting charged for data by services running in the background.

And, of course, the expanding concept of free access to certain sites only
serves to help make people think that sort of thing should be ok.

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BoratObama
Something similar to this has been available in Saudi Arabia for quite some
time now. It's a subscription based access to google services with no data
caps. [http://www.mobily.com.sa/wps/portal/personal/mobily-
connect/...](http://www.mobily.com.sa/wps/portal/personal/mobily-
connect/laptop-
internet/google/!ut/p/c4/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os_gQQ2cvL2OLADNHPy9nA09Tc-
MgSxcvQwMDQ_3g1Dz9gmxHRQBs_d2i/)

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retube
The one thing, and to my mind, the most important point that is not addressed
in the FAQ is "How does this work"? Presumably Google must have some
arangement with the mobile carriers?

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eze
How does this work? Philippine users accessing this URL don't get charged at
all, regardless of their data plan? If so, does Google pick up the tab?

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ChrisArchitect
with the amount of stuff you can get from Google Now (or it can get for you),
this makes it way more useful

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chimpoo
It's only offered in Philippines...

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3amOpsGuy
I'd imagine this will expand, as Facebook Zero has (same idea, but free
Facebook access instead).

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chimpoo
Yes definitely

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pjf
An IP-over-Gmail tunnel, anyone?

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glaxoberg
great

