Net neutrality recieves a boost.....

The ECJ has delivered a judgement reaffirming the EU's support for net neutrality. The Court held that Hungarian media giant, Telenor, had breach net neutrality rules by selling packages that excluded certain applications such as Spotify etc from being taken into account when assessing data consumption.

The complaint had been made by the Hungarian Media and Communications against the zero data rating of certain applications. The argument being that the use of such policies effectively encouraged consumers to use such apps and hence reduce the ability of other applications to compete. The court held that the use of these zero rating policies would be "liable to increase the use of the favoured applications and services and, accordingly, to reduce the use of the other applications and services available".

View: the decision of the court is welcome albeit not that unexpected. Whilst the prohibition on throttling certain applications in favour of others has been clear for some time, the decision of the court shows a wide interpretation of the regulations. If we are going to encourage and develop competition over the internet then discrimination of one app over another has to be prevented.