Activists Pan EU Net Neutrality Proposal

“This principle of net neutrality has kept the internet a free and open space since its inception”.

Net neutrality is the principle that all data should be treated equally, and that people should not be able to pay for preferential “fast lanes” for their data online.

In the week before the vote, political groups seeking to bring clarity to the text and ensure the delivery of Net Neutrality successfully advanced two sets of critical amendments.

Sounds good, right? Well, unfortunately, the new legislation also has a few gaping loopholes, which actually counteract its main intentions. Internet service providers have argued they need the flexibility to manage network traffic to ensure everyone gets access.

Firstly he recommends “keeping the internet a level playing field” by ending a loophole which would allow “fast lanes” to be created under the banner of “specialised services”.

Lee warned that the “specialised services” could squeeze bandwidth for start-ups, small businesses, artists, activists, and educators, as they can’t pay extra for the service. Thus, zero-rating has the same impact as technical discrimination: “it gives ISPs power to make certain applications more attractive than others and pick winners and losers on the Internet”. Van Schewick worries that because ISPs will not be able to identify what “class” encrypted data fits in, they will simply put them in the slowest lane – as has happened before. This behaviour discourages encryption, says Berners-Lee, as encrypted traffic is often bundled together in a single class and then throttled. “That means that they can slow down traffic anytime, not just during times of actual congestion”.

Berners-Lee was writing after a number of internet firms and investors signed an open letter to the European Parliament in support of these amendments. The parliament will hear the debate from 8:30am-10am CET.

A few of the MEPS in the European Union parliament have been ignoring startups and a broad coalition of stakeholders to adopt law which they know is faulty.

Berners-Lee said in a blog post on the World Wide Web Foundation website: “When I designed the World Wide Web, I built it as an open platform to foster collaboration and innovation”.

The vote is due to take place during a plenary session in Strasbourg, France, early Tuesday morning.