• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, September 1, 2016

EU rules are in the headlines this week -- and not just around Brexit discussions. After Ireland was told to pay €13bn in back tax, and today we have EU rules suggesting that Three, and any other mobile carrier considering ad blocking, could well be acting counter to net neutrality rules. 

It is great news because there has been a long history of friction between the people who run the Internet's "pipes" and publishers whose content runs over them. Telecom operators have tried to build their own publishing operations -- anyone remember Vodafone's doomed news operation? -- to prevent publishers getting what they see as a free ride. The latest move to hit media companies has been signalled by Three. Blocking ads at a carrier level would mean that ad-funded publishers' business models would be seriously impacted. I don't know if it was only me wondering whether the blanket ban could possibly end up as the kind of protection racket we see elsewhere where publishers pay to be whitelisted? With any luck, we'll never find out.

So it has been good to get a steer on regulation courtesy of rules published by the Body Of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (Berec). These effectively sum up an online ISP and mobile carrier as only being able to influence the traffic that goes over its lines and airwaves for security, to enforce the law or handle excess traffic. While the latter might give the likes of Three a little wiggle room, to claim that banning ads keeps traffic down, the letter of the law still suggests that carriers cannot make a decision for customers. If subscribers want to download ad blockers, that is up to them -- but to have the technology forced on them at a carrier level goes against net neutrality rules.

There was undoubtedly an element of a challenger brand in Three experimenting with an ad-free mobile Internet to differentiate itself in a crowded UK mobile market, but I can't help but think there is an element of the aforementioned row between content providers and the networks that are unable to charge for their content to be streamed across.

The Berec rules put control exactly where it should be -- in the hands of the consumer. I am no fan of ad blocking at an individual level, but I'm even more repulsed by ad being held back at a network level. I'm sure the likes of Three would not be particularly pleased if a giant like Google rolled out free mobile access for all and scuppered their business model, and so they can't be surprised the entire media industry is opposed to carrier-level ad blocking. Now, to add to those voice raising concerns, we can add the EU's tech regulation guys. It's a good day for adland.