Making Big Tech share telecoms costs would undermine EU net neutrality, rights groups say

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS – Europe’s web neutrality guidelines that help an open web can be undermined if EU regulators power tech giants Google, Meta and Netflix to shoulder a number of the prices of its telecoms community, digital rights activists warned on Wednesday.

The feedback from 34 NGOs from 17 nations, which embody European Digital Rights, Civil Liberties Union for Europe, ARTICLE 19 and Digital Frontier Basis, got here in an open letter to European Fee digital chief Margrethe Vestager and EU trade chief Thierry Breton.

The teams stated they had been involved about feedback from Vestager final month wherein she steered Huge Tech companies might need to contribute to the price of telecoms infrastructure – one thing telecoms operators have lengthy lobbied for.

EU web neutrality guidelines imply web service suppliers (ISPs) can’t block or throttle visitors to present precedence to some companies. Some specialists worry this dedication may get watered down in a take care of Huge Tech to assist fund telecoms networks.

“Charging content material and utility suppliers for using web infrastructure would undermine and battle with core web neutrality protections within the European Union,” the teams stated.

They in contrast such a transfer to the Trump administration’s try to get rid of web neutrality protections in the USA.

The teams criticised EU telecom firms for pushing a proposal first raised in 2012.

“The EU’s web neutrality legislation permits Europeans to make use of the bandwidth they purchase from their ISPs nevertheless they need – whether or not for Netflix, YouTube, Fb, or for a small, native website or service,” they stated.

“Thus European telecom firms are already compensated by their very own web service clients for transporting this information over their entry networks; they merely wish to be paid twice for a similar service.”