A digital advocacy group has accused Europe's Digital Agenda Commissioner of caving in to pressure from telcos and abandoning her promise to protect net neutrality.
In a leaked draft of Commissioner Neelie Kroes' proposals for new telecoms rules that are due to be formally presented next week, "net neutrality" was struck out in the one place where it had been mentioned previously. Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesman for La Quadrature du Net (QdN), said this shows that Kroes has backed down under pressure from telecommunications companies' lobbying.
Most of the 93-page leaked document has been completely re-written from previous drafts and now includes an article stating "any operator shall have the right to provide a European Assured Service Quality (ASQ) connectivity product."
"End-users shall be free to agree to enter into agreements on data volumes, and speeds and general quality characteristics with providers of electronic communications," continues article 19. According to Zimmermann, this is the "smoking gun" and ASQ is simply another way of saying traffic prioritization.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon