The European Court of Justice has overturned German mobile network operators Telekom Deutschland and Vodafone. sentence in two separate trials that its practice of exempting certain services from data limits violated the rules of net neutrality of the blog.
“Zero qualification“That’s when service providers offer customers plans that exempt certain data-consuming services (whether Spotify, Netflix, games, or whatever) from contributing to data limitation. Very often, those services are the provider’s business partners or, they are even part of the same mass media conglomerate, which allows the provider to put pressure on customers to use their data in a way that benefits them most.This has the convenient advantage of making it easier for providers to keep ridiculous rates in excess. data while punishing competing services that customers could use more if the rating is zero the scheme was not in place. No one wins except the telecom racket.
Net neutrality is the principle that telecom providers should treat all data flowing through their networks equally, without prioritizing one service over the other for commercial benefits. How He reported fortune, the version of net neutrality rules passed in the European Union in 2015 was at that time weaker than Barack Obama-era rules in the US, as they did not explicitly prohibit zero rating. This is no longer the case, as Donald Trump appointed to the Federal Communications Commission trapped the US Network Neutrality Rules in 2017, and a number of regulatory decisions and post-EU court rulings reduced the scope of zero qualification practices there.
In 2016, EU regulators found that zero rating would be allowed as long as zero rating services also slowed down when a customer faced a data limit, according to Fortune. In 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) confirmed this interpretation and found that it was illegal to block or slow down data after a user touched the limit for a particular user the service was not part of a zero rating agreement. However, EU operators have continued to offer a zero rating plans, based on the gaps perceived in the law.
The ECJ ruled on two separate cases involving Telekom and Vodafone on Thursday, which according to Reuters were provided by the German regulatory agency Federal Network Network (BNetzA) and the consumer association VZBV respectively. In the case of Telekom, it was the “StreamOn” service, which exempts from the transmission services that work with the company to have data limit and restricts all video transmission, regardless of whether it comes from one of the partners of StreamOn, when the limit is reached. . The Vodafone case involved its practice of counting zero-rated services or mobile access point traffic to the data limit, announcing plans with names like “Music Pass” or “Video Pass”. according to Engadget—When a customer leaves Germany to travel to another part of the EU.
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The two plans of the companies violated the principles of net neutrality, the ECJ found, in a completely unequivocal decision entitled “‘Zero tariff the options are contrary to the regulations on open Internet access “. Fortune wrote that BNetzA has already concluded that the court’s decision means Telekom will probably not be able to continue StreamOn in its “current form”.
For today’s judgments, the Court notes that a ‘zero tariff’ option, such as those dealt with in the main proceedings, distinguishes Internet traffic on the basis of considerations, by not having the basic packet traffic to partner applications “, the ECJ he told the media in a statement. “This commercial practice is contrary to the general obligation of equal treatment of traffic, without discrimination or interference, as required by the regulations on open Internet access.”
The court added: Since these limitations on bandwidth, network connection or roaming use only apply due to activation of the ‘zero rate’ option, which is contrary to regulations on open Internet access are also incompatible with EU law. “
Reuters reported that Telekom said it had already adjusted StreamOn in 2019 to remove the regulation, which it said would mean no further changes are needed according to the court ruling, but that BNetzA disagrees and the revised plan remains unacceptable. Vodafone told Reuters it would be reviewing the ruling and changing its products accordingly.
According to Telecoms.com, the ECJ ruling reverses a final decision on the matter in German courts, although the decision is specific enough that it leaves little question as to how this will end.
Maryant Fernández Pérez, Senior Adviser on Digital Policies at the European Consumer Protection Agency, said TechCrunch in a statement that the sentence was “very positive.” He added: “When companies like Vodafone use these‘ zero rate ’rates, they they are essentially limited to consumers and limit what the Internet can offer they. Zero rating harms consumer choice, competition, innovation, media diversity and freedom of information. ”