Why Europe’s net neutrality plan is more controversial than US rules

[Commentary] There are many similarities in network neutrality rules between the US and the European Union. But, the US rules were widely acclaimed by net neutrality advocates, while the EU proposal is being heavily criticized by advocates, tech companies such as reddit and BitTorrent, and World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Why is that? Let’s examine the four major parts of the EU proposal that net neutrality advocates are trying to change and compare these to the US rules:

“Fast lanes” and specialized services: The EU proposal doesn’t require separate capacity for specialized services and general Internet access. Instead, EU Internet service providers (ISPs) would be required to provide enough capacity so that specialized services can be offered without slowing down general Internet access.

Zero-rating: Whereas the “FCC rule makes potentially all cases subject to regulation,” there would likely be very limited circumstances in which a zero-rating practice in Europe would be stopped, according to Stanford Center for Internet and Society Director Barbara van Schewick.

“Classes” of Internet applications: While the EU proposal instructs Internet providers to “treat all traffic equally,” it also lets providers implement “reasonable traffic management measures” based upon the “different technical quality of service requirements of specific categories of traffic.” In short, ISPs would be allowed to treat one type of application (say, online gaming) different from another (such as file sharing or voice).

Impending congestion: The EU’s proposal lets ISPs take into account “impending network congestion.” That means ISPs could impose network management practices if congestion is “about to materialize” rather than when it actually occurs.