Le 30 septembre, La Quadrature du Net a envoyé sa réponse au questionnaire de la Commission européenne relatif à la neutralité du Net.
Le document, en anglais, s’intitule : « Time for EU-Wide Net Neutrality Regulation« . Les organisations suivantes en sont signataires. De nombreux citoyens y ont également apporté leur soutien.
Résumé (en anglais)
La Quadrature du Net welcomes the European Commission’s questionnaire on Net neutrality. As an advocacy group involved in the debate over the 2009 Telecoms Package, we greatly appreciate Commissioner Kroes’ commitment to safeguarding network neutrality, as well as the ongoing consultation process, which we hope will result in the adoption of a EU-wide framework for protecting this founding principle of the Internet.
Our contribution addresses most of the points raised in the questionnaire. After underlining the positive externalities generated by the network neutrality, we underline that this principle is currently very much at risk in Europe and give concrete examples of the different commercial strategies which motivate these illegitimate discriminatory traffic management practices. These examples tend to show that the current regulatory framework, which only relies on transparency and competition, will fail to guarantee the neutral nature the Internet’s physical infrastructure.
Through our answers to the following questions, we suggest different elements that should be included in any EU-wide Net neutrality legislation. More specifically, we take the view that all Internet access should abide by the principle of Net neutrality, and the exceptions to this principles respect an assessment framework guaranteeing that any traffic management practice actually benefits the freedom of communication of end-users that they affect. We also stress that the development of “so-called managed services” is not in contradiction with the protection of an open communications infrastructure, but that public authorities will have to design regulatory tools to ensure that these do not unsettle the Internet ecosystem. We conclude with further remarks on other issues that are structurally similar to Net neutrality.
We trust that our input will answer to your questions and remain at your disposal for any further inquiry you may have.