Yahoo Finance US venture capitalist apologizes for India comment
Star Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen apologized Wednesday for a tweet contending that anti-colonialism has been an economic disaster for India.
The comment fired off from Andreessen's @pmarca Twitter handle came after India's telecom regulator dealt a blow to Facebook's plans to offer free mobile Internet through its controversial Free Basics service, by outlawing differential pricing for data packages.
"I apologize for any offense caused by my earlier tweet about Indian history and politics," Andreessen said in one of a slew of messages from his account on Wednesday.
"I will leave all future commentary on all of these topics to people with more knowledge and experience than me."
An Andreessen tweet a night earlier contended that anti-colonialism has been "economically catastrophic" for India's people for decades, according to a copy captured and displayed online by website Gizmodo.
The tweet has since been deleted from his Twitter account.
Facebook co-founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on his page at the leading social network that he found Andreessen's comments "deeply upsetting" and in no way represented the way Facebook thinks.
Andreessen, who sits on the Facebook board of directors, had expressed on Twitter that he felt it was morally wrong for India's poor to be denied free Internet access for ideological reasons.
In a decision on Monday, regulators in India said that because Free Basics only allows access to selected websites, albeit free, it violates the principle that the entire Internet should be available to everyone on equal terms.
While not ruling explicitly on net neutrality, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) decided not to allow what it called "discriminatory pricing" for different data platforms or content.
The regulator's ruling suggests that Free Basics, which was aimed mainly at millions of people in India's poor rural areas, will not be allowed to continue in its current form.
On a visit to New Delhi in October, Zuckerberg spoke of his desire to help "the next billion" -- the approximate number of Indians without the Internet -- get online.
The technology giant had mounted a campaign via newspapers and text messages in India, asking people to lobby the regulator not to bar Free Basics.
The regulator's ruling was a clear victory for net neutrality advocates, who seek to prevent companies from restricting access to the Internet, with the regulator saying it had been "guided by the principles of net neutrality."
