"And zero-rating programs also give broadband providers an incentive to further tilt the market in favor of their own services or those of preferred partners. If you have a large enough data bucket or the price of data is relatively low, it likely won't matter much that you can access some sites without tapping into your monthly allotment. But if data is expensive or your usage caps are low, you're much more likely to use those free services.
That dynamic gives providers an incentive to charge more for data or keep their data caps low, not based on their economic costs, but to promote their zero-rated services. And in fact, that's exactly what's happened in European countries that allowed zero rating and didn't have net neutrality rules in place, said Barbara van Schewick, a professor at Stanford Law School."
- Date Published:02/05/2016
- Original Publication:San Jose Mercury News