"There’s been quite a brouhaha surrounding T-Mobile’s Binge On service
ever since it was announced last year. Both YouTube and the EFF have come out against Binge On, and now a Stanford law professor has published a lengthy report against it as well.
A new report from Barbara van Schewick claims that Binge On violates net neutrality. The report, which was also submitted to the FCC, makes several arguments as to why Binge On goes against net neutrality principles. van Schewick says that despite T-Mobile’s claim that anyone can join Binge On after performing a “minor amount of technical work,” the requirements to joining Binge On are actually “substantial.” She says that those requirements exclude services that use the User Datagram Protocol, “making it impossible for innovative providers such as YouTube to join.” The report also says that Binge On’s requirements discriminate against providers that use encryption.
van Schewick goes on to say that Binge On “distorts competition
.” The report points to studies that show that customers prefer zero-rated content that won’t use up their data, which makes free streaming Binge On services more attractive than those that do use data. That also means that those free streaming services are more attractive to video creators.
Another issue that van Schewick has with Binge On’s partners is that the content that they offer is largely commercial. “Binge On stifles free expression,” the report says, because there’s little user-generated or educational content on the service."
- Date Published:01/29/2016
- Original Publication:Phone Dog