EU report finds zero-rating doesn’t clash with competition laws

[Commentary] The week of June 12, the European Union Directorate-General for Competition released a report on the effects of zero-rating practices on competition in broadband markets, commissioned from consultants DotEcon, Aetha, and Oswald & Vahida. The report reviewed both the theoretical arguments regarding zero-rating and competition (including work by myself and Roslyn Layton) and actual experiences with the practice from European Union countries.

The report’s findings are extremely informative, given the extent to which the purported harms from zero-rating alarmed a large number of United States advocates in the past. Notably, this resulted in the February 2015 Open Internet Order requiring case-by-case analysis of alleged breaches of a zero-rating general conduct standard in agreements between broadband internet access service operators and end consumers.

[Bronwyn Howell is a faculty member at the School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.]