Although a study shows that the contribution to the cost of telecom networks by Big Tech companies could boost the European economy by 30%, in addition to having been considered by the head of digital at the European Commission Margrethe Vestager, the network neutrality rules of the continent that support an open internet would be harmed, according to digital rights activists.
The notice comes from 34 NGOs from 17 countries, including European Digital Rights, Civil Liberties Union for Europe, Article 19 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who sent an open letter to Vestager and EU industry chief Thierry Breton.
The concern of these groups is related to the comment made by Vestager in May, in which she suggested that companies such as Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Netflix could be forced to contribute to the cost of telecom infrastructure – something that has long been telecom operators have been lobbying.
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European net neutrality rules at risk
One of the European Union’s net neutrality rules says that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) cannot block or speed up traffic to prioritize certain services. The concern makes sense, as that commitment could be watered down in a deal with these Big Tech companies in exchange for financial aid to telecom networks, experts fear.
“Charging content and application providers for the use of internet infrastructure would undermine and conflict with core net neutrality protections in the European Union,” the groups said. They liken such a move to the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate net neutrality protections in the United States.
Prior to the attempt, the same position had already been jointly proposed by Google and Verizon in August 2010, in which they agreed to a agreement that both were against complete net neutrality.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in November 2007, the European Commission published the regulation for electronic communications networks and services in which it said that “current EU rules allow network operators to offer different services to different groups of customers, but not allows those in a dominant position to discriminate in an anti-competitive way between customers in a similar situation”.
In line with this regulation, the group clarifies that “the EU’s net neutrality law allows Europeans to use the bandwidth they buy from their ISPs as they wish – whether for Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, or for a small website or service, place”.
Teles argument is not new
While Vestager’s analysis is in line with a study released by the telecom lobby group Etno, it paid little heed to calls by the telecom industry to loosen EU merger rules for more consolidation.
This is because the arguments presented are not new. The proposal was first raised in 2012 and brought to the fore a decade later, drawing criticism from the activist group of EU telecom companies. “European telecommunications companies are already compensated by their own Internet service customers for transporting this data through their access networks; they simply want to be paid twice for the same service,” they pointed out.
With information from Reuters
