Protest the Slowdown: Tell the EU to Vote Net Neutrality

The EU will be deciding on net neutrality this summer. Surrounding this decision are fears that EU regulators will enable loopholes first found in the EU’s Net Neutrality rules of 2015. As a result, organizations in favor of net neutrality are asking those in their corner to submit a comment to the BEREC during an open comment period.

The concept of net neutrality implies that Internet service providers should enable access to online content regardless of the source – without favoring certain websites. The rules passed in the EU in 2015 state that operators can only give special treatment when it is absolutely necessary, and won’t mean a worse experience for regular Internet users. When the 2015 rules were first drafted by the European Commission, the authors claimed it would add much needed clarity to how the Internet should function, but its opponents quickly pointed out that the law is full of loopholes which would allow providers to favor huge commercial partners.

Amid the controversy, organizations such as Fight for the Future and Save the Internet are rallying to encourage the Body of the European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) to be clear on every aspect of net neutrality, and get serious on the issues at hand. They’re rallying to “save the Internet,” and their ‘EU Slowdown’ effort is being conducted by over 7,000 websites using the EU flag loading icon on their websites.

At Golden Frog, we stand for the Open Internet and support this current push for greater clarity on the EU’s net neutrality rules. We do prefer the term “Open Internet” over net neutrality, however, as the two are different (net neutrality implies the regulator is defining the rules while the term Open Internet implies the consumer or market is defining them). You can learn more about the differences between the two here.

Get Involved

• Submit your comment visit savenetneutrality.eu now through July 18, 2016!
• Read our Vision Paper to learn more about the difference between net neutrality and the Open Internet, and net neutrality rules in the United States