The EU passed net neutrality rules—and net neutrality advocates aren’t happy.

Though the European Paliament voted in favor of net neutrality rules yesterday, and supporters of net neutrality say it may the biggest hit to net neutrality yet. Because while they may have approved the end of roaming charges, the rule passed sans amendments—and that means zero effectiveness, according to net neutrality advocates.

The European Parliament voted Tuesday afternoon to pass the proposal with none of the amendments that consumer advocate and tech firms wanted for it. These amendments would’ve shored up a whole lot of loopholes, and without them net neutrality advocates say the rules don’t do enough to prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from abusing the system—which, under the bill’s broad definition of “specialized services,” seems likely.

Photo Credit: ✖ Daniel Rehn
Photo Credit: ✖ Daniel Rehn

This exemption is really only intended for things like medical services or HD videoconferencing. But critics argue that the proposal’s broad drawing could mean ISPs offer fast lanes by calling them a specialized service; meaning users and companies wouldn’t have any protection against a tiered system except in the most egregious circumstances.

Even if they did manage to use the new rules to protect Internet users, it might not be enough. The proposal generally allows for zero-rating, meaning a service doesn’t count towards users’ bandwidth cap or usage cost, which means ISPs could have companies to pay to be zero-rated, thereby creating caste system for Internet traffic.

And as if that weren’t enough, under the EU’s new rules ISPs are permitted to predict periods of peak demand and introduce “reasonable traffic management measures,” even grouping services into “classes” that can be sped up or slowed down at the ISP’s discretion.

Given those loopholes, it’s no surprise that net neutrality advocates didn’t find this to be a bill that would actually further their cause. That’s also what spurred a number of U.S. startups and and tech companies; including WordPress, Reddit, Netflix, Tumblr, and more; to draft a letter to the EU parliament calling for further review of these issues. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, also sided against the rules in a blog post earlier this week.

Unfortunately, they weren’t heard; only 50 out of the 751 members of the European Parliament attended the debate preceding the vote yesterday afternoon. As Ars Technica writes, Parliament members are clearly tired of discussing this:

Pressure was applied at the end of the morning’s debate by Andrus Ansip, the vice-commissioner responsible for the EU Digital Market. He said that if the text was not passed in its entirety now, there was “a risk of delays, not only months, but years,” and that “risk” may have weighed with some MEPs. But Reda pointed out on Twitter that is not true: “Actually it’s only 6 weeks until 3rd reading,” when a new compromise text could have been agreed. One other reason MEPs may have been unwilling to change the text was that it has been going back and forth between the various institutions of the EU for years, and MEPs are evidently sick of discussing it, as the poor turn-out for the earlier debate showed. In the end, sheer political fatigue may have played a major part in undermining net neutrality in the EU.

Most people’s main problem with the rules circle back to the fact they’re ambiguous. It’s not that they instruct ISPs to take advantage of the loophole, but nothing is there to stop them (like the amendments would have). While folks had similar complaints with the loopholes in the FCC’s net neutrality ruling and little evidence has shown any U.S. ISPs are taken advantage of it, the EU’s rules are very open for carriers to deal with congesition—which also leaves the floodgates open for abuse.  

“As the text currently stands there is no indication as to how much abuse of dominance would be permissible under this arrangement,” Joe McNamee at the European Digital Rights campaign group told the BBC.

And since the Internet is just a network of networks, there may be some blowback across the Atlantic to the U.S. (and, obviously, beyond). As each EU nation begins to adopt the rules over the next six months, many specialists foresee some reverberations around the world. Coupled with the Safe Harbor decision, it’s safe to say that Internet in the EU is weaving a complicated web.