The European Parliament is set to vote Tuesday on net neutrality rules that open internet advocates warn are a threat to free speech, privacy, and innovation.

Opponents are calling on European members of Parliament (MEPs) to pass amendments that target four standout problems in the legislation, including granting unlimited power to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to slow down and speed up web traffic at will and use “zero rating” exemptions to protect certain applications from monthly bandwidth caps, among other issues.

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The bill—the end result of a June “trilogue” meeting between the European Parliament, the European Union (EU), and the EU Council—has been presented as a bipartisan compromise text, but net neutrality experts say the devil is in the details.

Barbara van Schewick, a Stanford University law professor and director of the school’s Center for Internet and Society, outlined the problems with the bill in an article posted on Medium last week, explaining, “The proposal about to be adopted fails to deliver network neutrality to the EU and is much weaker than current net neutrality rules in the United States….. We should ask the Parliament to adopt amendments to ensure an open Internet in Europe.”

According to van Schewick, the bill’s biggest issues are:

  • The proposal allows ISPs to create fast lanes for companies that pay through the specialized services exception.
  • The proposal generally allows zero-rating and gives regulators very limited ability to police it, leaving users and companies without protection against all but the most egregious cases of favoritism.
  • The proposal allows class-based discrimination, i.e. ISPs can define classes and speed up or slow down traffic in those classes even if there is no congestion.
  • The proposal allows ISPs to prevent “impending” congestion. That makes it easier for them to slow down traffic anytime, not just during times of actual congestion.

European activists are pushing for MEPs to adopt a few critical amendments to close the bill’s most egregious loopholes. That includes refining criteria defining “specialized services” to prevent network discrimination; modifying provisions of internet traffic to safeguard equal treatment across the board; clarifying rules for managing network congestion to prevent ISPs from interfering with networks; and allowing EU member states the power to individually address “zero rating” practices.

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