20150521 EU will Netzneutralität abschaffen

"non-paper" deletes net neutrality

The French digital rights organisation La Quadrature du Net claims to have obtained a leaked copy of a "non-paper" on the matter of net neutrality, apparently written by the presidency of the Council of the EU, currently held by Latvia.

The heavily edited document removes every reference to net neutrality (PDF), right from the opening Article 1 of Annex II, which sets out "Object and Scope." This is changed from: "This Regulation establishes common rules on aiming at ensuring open internet access offered by providers of electronic communications to the public, safeguarding end-users' rights and ensuring non-discriminatory treatment of traffic" to simply: "This Regulation establishes common rules to ensure open internet access."

Article 2's definition of net neutrality—"the principle according to which all internet traffic is treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, independently of its sender, recipient, type, content, device, service or application"—is deleted completely. Similarly, the definition for "internet access service" sees the key phrase "in accordance with the principle of net neutrality" removed.

According to the leak's proposed text, traffic management measures no longer need to be "compliant with the principle of equal treatment," but "shall be based on objectively different technical quality of service requirements of specific classes of traffic."

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