EU sender Europa enda lenger inn i bakevja

While the EU Commission has pursued a lot of nice-sounding policies, it has avoided fundamental reforms that would reverse Europe from falling behind in the digital economy. When it comes to the digital single market, EU leaders have shown that the next election is more important than Europe’s competitiveness in the global economy. Strand Consult’s report Understanding Net Neutrality and Stakeholders’ Arguments reviews Europe’s many economic challenges and examines EU telecom regulation and politics.

The crucible of “consumer protection” is used to support a variety of flawed telecom policies. One example is net neutrality which purports to protect consumers by regulating operators.

Operators exert relatively little influence on consumers, whereas consumers’ internet experience is largely determined by their mobile devices, operating systems, search engines, social networks, and content/application providers. These players, however, are exempt from net neutrality. While Strand Consult supports anti-discrimination rules, such rules need to apply to the entire internet value chain to protect consumers.