• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 21, 2017

Regulators in Canada ruled this week that Internet service providers violate the country's net neutrality laws by exempting some data from consumers' monthly caps.

The ruling stemmed from a challenge to broadband provider Quebecor's "Unlimited Music" feature, which allows some Videotron subscribers to stream music through some apps on a zero-rated basis -- meaning that the data doesn't count toward their caps.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said that "differential pricing" -- a broad term that includes zero-ratings initiatives -- "generally gives an unfair advantage or disadvantage to certain content providers and consumers."

"After assessing Videotron’s Unlimited Music Service ... the CRTC found that the company is giving an undue preference to certain consumers and music streaming services, while subjecting other consumers and content providers to an unreasonable disadvantage," the Canadian agency said.

In the U.S., Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai recently endorsed zero-ratings offerings by AT&T and Verizon.

AT&T allows wireless customers who purchase DirecTV to watch video through a mobile app, without counting those streams against customers' data caps. Last January, Verizon rolled out FreeBee Data, which lets companies arrange for their mobile content to be zero-rated. The company also zero-rates video streamed from its Go90 mobile app.

Pai said in February that both companies' zero-ratings plans were "popular among consumers, particularly low-income Americans," and that the plans "enhanced competition in the wireless marketplace."

But Pai's predecessor, Democrat Tom Wheeler, criticized the carriers' data-cap exemptions. Wheeler told a Senate panel in January that the offerings "may harm consumers and competition by unreasonably discriminating in favor of downstream providers owned or affiliated with the network providers."