E.U. Tightens Net Neutrality Guidelines ⇥ theverge.com

Amar Toor, the Verge:

The net neutrality rules adopted by the European Parliament last year aimed to strengthen net neutrality by requiring internet service providers (ISPs) to treat all web traffic equally, without favoring some services over others. But the regulations contained several loopholes that raised concerns among net neutrality advocates, including a provision that would have allowed ISPs to create “fast lanes” for “specialized services,” and another that would have allowed for zero-rating, under which certain services and apps would be exempt from counting against monthly data limits. A “traffic management” provision would have allowed telecoms to prioritize internet traffic from some services over others.

Certain kinds of internet connection, such as remote surgery, are allowed to be prioritized, but most traffic must be treated identically — or, at least, comparably to similar kinds of traffic. Any restrictions that an ISP might place on, for instance, one video streaming service must apply equally to traffic from other video streaming services. This legislation makes complete sense to me; I hope it’s successful for consumers across Europe, so that similar legislation may be adopted elsewhere.