net neutrality

Portuguese Internet service provider MEO offered smartphone contracts with monthly data limits, and sells additional monthly packages for particular data services. Critics of EU net neutrality rules say loopholes allow data for different services to be sold under zero rating exceptions to data limits. Consumer advocates of net neutrality have cited this pricing model as an illustration of Internet access with weak net neutrality protection.

Net neutrality, sometimes referred to as network neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent transfer rates regardless of content, website, platform, application, type of equipment, source address, destination address, or method of communication (i.e., without price discrimination). Net neutrality was advocated for in the 1990s by the presidential administration of Bill Clinton in the United States. Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934. In 2025, an American court ruled that Internet companies should not be regulated like utilities, which weakened net neutrality regulation and put the decision in the hands of the United States Congress and state legislatures.