Dutch online rights group Bits of Freedom disagrees with govt plans on Net Neutrality

The Dutch government has recently opened a public consultation on the proposal for a bill governing net neutrality. The gist of the bill is that for the time being, the Dutch government will allow ISPs to set their own traffic shaping policies, as long as they are transparent about them and explain their policies to their customers.

The opinion of the Ministry of Economic Affairs is that a requirement for transparent shaping rules coupled with a competitive market provides enough stimuli to ISPs to provide services that Internet users want.

EU regulations on the matter of net neutrality allow member states to set minimum service requirements for ISPs in case their services degrade as a result of traffic shaping. The bill states that such requirements will not be set initially, but that they may follow if ISP services do indeed degrade.

Online civil liberties group Bits of Freedom (BoF) disagrees with the government’s assessment. They fear that the bill will limit the freedom of Internet users by allowing ISP’s to differentiate between types of traffic and prioritise certain types over others. This, they fear, might lead to situations where users must pay more if they want to visit more sites. Transparency does not provide enough of a safeguard for consumers, argues BoF. For what if costs to switch providers are prohibitively high, or if all ISPs choose to adopt the same policy? Furthermore, BoF fears the bill may cause ISPs to block innovative Internet services, if these pose a competitive threat to ISPs. BoF wants to see innovative online service’s right to operate unfettered by ISPs laid down in a law.

Bits of Freedom proposes to only allow traffic shaping if ISPs can provide good reasons why it would be reasonable network management.