Open Letter to EU Commissioner-designate
Brussels, 29 October 2024
Preserving the Open Internet
Henna Virkkunen
Commissioner-designate for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy
European Commission
Dear Ms. Virkkunen,
We, the undersigned organizations and individuals representing civil society, academia, and technical organizations, wish to congratulate you on your nomination as Commissioner-designate for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy. With this letter we want to bring to your attention our concerns with ongoing efforts to undermine critical principles of net neutrality and to request that the European Commission refrain from intervening in the commercial dynamics of the Internet’s interconnection ecosystem.
During the last Commission’s tenure, we witnessed different attempts to introduce mandated payments from Content and Application Providers (CAPs) to the telecommunications operators providing Internet access services. This debate has been tagged with different names: “fair-share,” “cost-sharing,” “network fees,” and “sender pays.” The latest iteration is the requirement for a dispute resolution mechanism in the interconnection market. All these fundamentally represent the same concept: of altering the Internet’s networking model in favor of a handful of large telecom operators.
We strongly oppose these proposals that we believe are not only unnecessary, but also extremely harmful to the global Internet and its users.
As the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) has concluded, the Internet’s interconnection ecosystem is characterized by well-functioning market dynamics with balanced bargaining powers1. Similarly, the vast majority of stakeholders in Europe have pointed out how this type of regulatory intervention risks fragmenting the Internet, distorts market competition, harms consumers, and creates adverse incentives leading to a more expensive and inefficient infrastructure with poorer quality of service and higher costs.
The last Commission conducted two public consultations on this topic and the results were clear: most stakeholders clearly opposed this unnecessary intervention2. In fact, not even among telecom operators was there a consensus, and only the largest operators supported this type of regulatory intervention.
The new Commission represents an opportunity for Europe to put this debate to rest and to reaffirm its support for critical principles like net neutrality, not to break them. The new Commission will be required to rethink the Digital Networks Act (DNA); any recommendations must be based on evidence and stakeholder input. European stakeholders have already spoken – it is time for Europe to use its global leadership to promote an open Internet for everyone.
Yours sincerely,
Internet Society
Epicenter.works – for digital rights
ApTI, Romania
CENTR – association of European country code top-level domain name registries
Chaos Computer Club e.V.
Chaos Computer Club Lëtzebuerg (C3L)
Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties)
Creative Commons
Desiree Miloshevic , RIPE Cooperation Working Group Co-Chair
Digital Society Forum, Slovenia
Digitalcourage e.V.
Državljan D / Citizen D
Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis, Senior Resident Fellow, Lead on Internet governance, DFRLab, Atlantic Council; senior researcher and non-resident fellow, Lisbon Council.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Electronic Frontier Norway
European Digital Rights (EDRi)
Homo Digitalis
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
Internet Society Belgium Chapter
Internet Society Catalan Chapter
Internet Society Norway Chapter
Internet Society Poland Chapter
Internet Society Portugal Chapter
Internet Society Romania Chapter
Internet Society UK England Chapter
IT-Pol Denmark
Julf Helsingius , RIPE Cooperation Working Group Co-Chair
Michele Neylon, CEO, Blacknight
OW2 open source association
Professor Chris Marsden, Monash Law School
Vrijschrift.org
Xnet, Institute for Democratic Digitalisation
Footnotes:
[1] Draft report on the IP interconnection ecosystem, BEREC, June 2024: https://www.berec.europa.eu/en/document-categories/berec/reports/draft-berec-report-on-the-ip-interconnection-ecosystem
[2] Network usage fees: the EC plays politics with the Global Internet, Internet Society, October 2023: https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2023/10/network-usage-fees-the-european-commission-plays-politics-with-the-global-internet/ ; Unlocking the Future of Connectivity: An In-Depth Analysis of the Public Consultation on the White Paper, Political Intelligence, 2024: https://political-intelligence.com/news/unlocking-the-future-of-connectivity-an-in-depth-analysis-of-the-public-consultation-on-the-white-paper/