Boston, MA 08/06/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has launched an App in Zambia through its Internet.org project. Zambia, a developing country, has 15 percent population access to internet and Facebook sees a huge market here which has a population of 15 million. Internet.org app will give free access to basic internet services to subscribers of Zambia’s Airtel phone network in the region. Users won’t be charged for data access services which are not the case with services in the developing countries. The App works on Android phones as well as some phones with simple features used by large number of people in Zambia. The App comes with messenger service rather than email service and users may incur extra charges for data search beyond the 13 predetermined services the app has got to offer.
Sharing to Gain
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) initiative Open Compute Project (OCP) has gained momentum as various industry groups are sharing best practices to design server, storage and data center hardware. The knowledge sharing has helped Facebook and others in the industry to build efficient data centers. Adopting the lessons from OCP since the year 2011 has helped Facebook save energy and reduce green house gas emissions by considerable percentage.
A brief Shutdown
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) restored the services after a brief outage to its users in certain countries like the U.S, Chile and India. Facebook stated that it regrets the inconvenience caused to some users. It is not sure what caused the outage and says it is a technical failure rather than any suspicious activity. Facebook is still investigating to find the source of this incident.
Lawsuit from Austria
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is being sued by a law student and data privacy campaigner Max Schrems of Austria. The case comes as outcome of investigations into the firm sharing the user data with the U.S National Security Agency’s Prism program. The law student is claiming $671 per user and is campaigning for other users to join his movement to force Facebook to operate lawfully while protecting user data. A ruling from Austria could be enforced in Ireland from where Facebook runs its European operations.
