Content Providers vs Internet Service Providers

A recent report from Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) concludes that EU Member States have made significant progress in their digital transition. In fact, the European Internet Regulation ensures that citizens are free to use whichever apps and websites they wish, businesses can acquire new customers, and innovators can build new services. According to DESI, basic broadband infrastructure is by now available to all Europeans and 70% of households are covered by Gigabit networks. At the same time, network traffic patterns have increased dramatically over the past years and have been further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a massive move to telework and a video streaming surge. This surge in data traffic has required massive investments in ensuring that Gigabit connectivity networks are up to the task, which has enormously benefited those online platforms that have driven most of such traffic. The Commission proposal of a Declaration on digital rights and principles already commits the EU to ?developing adequate frameworks so that all market actors benefiting from the digital transformation assume their social responsibilities and make a fair and proportionate contribution to the costs of public goods, services and infrastructures, for the benefit of all Europeans?. According to the European Commission, it is time to assess whether and how the major providers of online content should contribute to the costs of digital networks that have allowed them to thrive.

Julien Brunet, Spring-Legal, Paris
Karine Riahi, Spring-Legal, Paris