Stanford CIS

A multi-speed Europe

on

"Unsurprisingly, then, Europe’s new rules have bigger loopholes than America’s, even if the law just passed is much stricter than the commission’s first proposals. America’s rules also allow “reasonable” network management, for instance, but ban operators from discriminating against certain types of service, such as video or file-sharing—which the EU’s law allows. Similarly, American internet providers can offer specialised services, but the FCC can intervene if it thinks they are using this exception to undermine the spirit of net neutrality. In Europe the exception is so broad that internet providers could bring in paid-for fast lanes simply by labelling them as specialised services, reckons Barbara van Schewick of the Centre for Internet and Society at Stanford University."