The good news: the European Union has passed regulations to protect so-called network neutrality in all 28 of its member states. The bad news: the legislation contains loopholes that could allow "Internet fast lanes"—the very preferential treatment that net neutrality is supposed to restrict.
As the name suggests, the Telecoms Single Market legislation is meant to establish a single telecommunications market for all of Europe. The regulations, which have been debated for over two years, also include provisions that prohibit most roaming fees by mobile carriers and ban most forms of traffic discrimination by Internet service providers. But critics find protections for both net neutrality and against roaming fees too weak.
Estelle Masse, a policy analyst for the the Internet freedom advocacy group Access Now, says that the legislation allows Internet service providers and mobile carriers not to charge for certain types of a data—a practice called "zero rating." The organization also worries about over-broad language that would allow providers to charge varying rates for "specialized services." The fear is that this could provide "fast lanes" and "slow lanes" for certain types of content, such as streaming video, or give companies whose data services are zero-rated an unfair advantage over others.
Julia Reda, a member of the European Parliament representing the Pirate Party, argued in a statement today that even the roaming protections are too weak because they will still allow carriers to apply roaming fees if a customer exceeds certain undefined limits.
Network neutrality advocates sought to close the loopholes with a pair of amendments. Today, however, European lawmakers, eager to have the regulations in place, passed the rules without the amendments.
But all is not lost for network neutrality advocates. Masse notes in a blog post today that the passage of the legislation opens a nine month "consultation period" during which regulators will hammer out the new rules in more detail. That creates an opportunity to close those loopholes once and for all.
