NEW DELHI: Tim Berners-Lee , the English computer scientist who is the inventor of the World Wide Web, has attacked Facebook ’s Internet.org or ‘ Free Basics ’ initiative that offers a limited set of websites and apps free of charge to users in developing countries. The initiative has been widely panned as it's considered that it violates the principles of net neutrality.In an interview with The Guardian, Berners-Lee said people in emerging markets should “just say no” to the project. He said the initiative was not internet and that there were other ways of reducing the price of access.“When it comes to compromising on net neutrality, I tend to say ‘just say no’,” he said.“In the particular case of somebody who’s offering … something which is branded internet, it’s not internet, then you just say no. No it isn’t free, no it isn’t in the public domain, there are other ways of reducing the price of internet connectivity and giving something … (only) giving people data connectivity to part of the network deliberately, I think is a step backwards.”Facebook’s controversial initiative faced criticism for as it is seen violating the principle of net neutrality, which is against any priority being accorded to an entity in the internet traffic flow because of payments to service providers such as telecom companies. It was renamed as Free Basics, last month to distinguish the Internet.org initiative from the programmes and services that Facebook provides.Following a walkout by many of its publisher partners in India, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had come out in defence of the programme, saying it did not block or throttle services and is not in conflict with net neutrality.Launched last year, the programme has more than a dozen mobile operators on board across 17 countries offering basic internet services without data charges to over a billion people.