In October last year, the European Parliament passed the Telecoms Single Market Regulation, which many criticised for failing to fully protect net neutrality, Business Insider reported [2]. One issue that critics pointed out is the possible loophole that would allow zero-rating – one of the most debated internet governance issues of the moment – as BEREC’s draft guidelines adviced to take a case-by-case approach, instead of banning the practice outright, according to Ars Technica [3].
It’s not only digital rights groups [4] that urge the adoption of strong net neutrality rules: also the European public broadcasting organisation (EBU) has come out against zero-rating, saying that it could have “an adverse impact on media pluralism and distort competition”.
Earlier Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, called for [5] strong net neutrality rules in the EU that would ban zero-rating and “fast lanes” for traffic for a fee.
BEREC is supposed to publish its outcome by the end of August.
