New Delhi, April 28 (IANS): The Congress on Tuesday asked the government to investigate as to why thed Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) put up on its website the names of over one million people who had written to it on net neutrality.

Raising the issue during zero hour in the Lok Sabha, Congress member Gaurav Gogoi said: "TRAI putting up the list of names and e-mail addresses of net activists on its website is akin to a bank making the account details of its customers public."

"This will expose these net activists to hackers," he said.

Gogoi asked the government to probe as to why and who in the TRAI had leaked the names.

TRAI on Tuesday released the names and email IDs of over one million people who gave their comments on the consultation paper on net neutrality.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had last week accused the government of floating a "trial balloon" on net neutrality even as Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said his regime was in favour of free and fair access to the World Wide Web.

Network neutrality, or open inter-working, means that in accessing the World Wide Web, one is in full control over how to go online, where to go and what to do as long as these are lawful.

It advocates that firms that provide internet services should treat all lawful internet content in a neutral manner.