Norwegian telecom operator Telenor has extended its partnership with the browser maker Opera Software, allowing Uninor and other Telenor subsidiaries to adopt Opera products into their offering. As part of the deal, Uninor and other Telenor subsidiaries will have an option to offer Opera products like Opera Max, Opera Web Pass, Sponsored Web Pass and co-branded Opera Mini mobile browser to its subscribers. The deal period or the terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Opera Max is a data-savings Android app that claims to compress data across applications on the user’s mobile device, especially video and image-heavy apps such as Vine, Instagram, Vevo or Flipboard. It compresses data by rerouting all non-encrypted data requests through its compression servers. Considering the nature of the app, it could raise some privacy concerns among users, despite Opera's claims that it takes user privacy seriously and only measures how much data one uses and how much data they’ve saved. It's worth noting that Opera Max is currently available only in select markets like United States, Europe, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, although the company is testing the app globally. Opera Web Pass allows telcos to offer time-based or content-based web-pass packages to its subscribers. These passes can be purchased from within the Opera Mini browser. Note that Opera already has similar web pass tie-ups with Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea Cellular in India. Sponsored web pass allows telcos to partner with advertisers who will sponsor the cost of customers’ mobile Internet access. Subscribers will have to watch a short advertisement at the start, following which they will receive free usage for the entire session. After the pass expires,…
