Facebook's Free Basics program that provides Internet connectivity to almost 40 developing countries has shut down in Egypt. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is also battling the claims of India's telecom regulator Trai that the Internet.org program does not maintain net neutrality, but instead the social network favors certain Web services over others.

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The social media giant has announced that Free Basics will stop being available in Egypt. More than 3 million Egyptians were using the program.

Facebook's free Internet program has been put on hold in India until the end of January. The country did not renew a necessary permit for the world's largest social network on January 6, Wednesday.

It is possible that Free Basics will be back online in India and Egypt. However, regulators in those countries are reviewing how the service would affect people's Internet use.

India's telecom regulator claims it has received 890,000 responses that support Free Backs. Meanwhile, 544,000 comments were received through Facebook mail.  

A big concern is about net neutrality. Some Internet users argue Facebook is breaking up the Internet by providing special treatment for certain websites, such as by blocking access to social media in China, according to PopHerald.

Critics of Free Basics are concerned that Facebook's programs only provide access to sites that meet particular data requirements. They argue it opposes net neutrality.

However, earlier this month Trai requested Reliance Communication to keep providing the services of Facebook's free Internet platform. That would be until the pricing issues are cleared up.   

In May 2015 the Free Basics team announced that the Internet.org developer platform would give developers the ability to submit their Web apps to be considered for the program, according to Tech Crunch. One goal was to provide Internet users with more choices.

Free Basics' official partners including Bing and Wikipedia were still more visible. However, the approach allowed the Internet.org app to move closer towards net neutrality.

Facebook's goal for inviting developers to the platform was to show that it was not just protecting the interests of big business. It seems it was not enough. Tech Crunch suggests tweaks such as removing the program's classification of official business partners and published developers.