Biden admin wants Europe to reject forced payments from Big Tech to ISPs

Biden admin wants Europe to reject forced payments from Big Tech to ISPs

2 years ago
Anonymous $KxGqLmj_R3

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/biden-admin-wants-europe-to-reject-forced-payments-from-big-tech-to-isps/

The Biden administration urged Europe to reject the telecom industry plan to make Big Tech companies pay for Internet service providers' network expansions and upgrades. In comments submitted to the European Commission last week, the US Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) said that mandating payments from online platforms to ISPs would "distort competition" and undermine net neutrality.

"Mandating direct payments to telecom operators in the EU absent assurances on spending could reinforce the dominant market position of the largest operators," the US submission said. "It could give operators a new bottleneck over customers, raise costs for end users, and alter incentives for CAPs/LTGs [content and application providers and large traffic generators] to make efficient decisions regarding network investment and interconnection. It is difficult to understand how a system of mandatory payments imposed on only a subset of content providers could be enforced without undermining net neutrality."