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Antitrust, Regulation and the Neutrality Trap: A plea for a smart, evidence-based internet policy. CEPS Special Report No. 104/April 2015

Renda, Andrea. (2015) Antitrust, Regulation and the Neutrality Trap: A plea for a smart, evidence-based internet policy. CEPS Special Report No. 104/April 2015. UNSPECIFIED.

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    Abstract

    When they look at Internet policy, EU policymakers seem mesmerised, if not bewitched, by the word ‘neutrality’. Originally confined to the infrastructure layer, today the neutrality rhetoric is being expanded to multi-sided platforms such as search engines and more generally online intermediaries. Policies for search neutrality and platform neutrality are invoked to pursue a variety of policy objectives, encompassing competition, consumer protection, privacy and media pluralism. This paper analyses this emerging debate and comes to a number of conclusions. First, mandating net neutrality at the infrastructure layer might have some merit, but it certainly would not make the Internet neutral. Second, since most of the objectives initially associated with network neutrality cannot be realistically achieved by such a rule, the case for network neutrality legislation would have to stand on different grounds. Third, the fact that the Internet is not neutral is mostly a good thing for end users, who benefit from intermediaries that provide them with a selection of the over-abundant information available on the Web. Fourth, search neutrality and platform neutrality are fundamentally flawed principles that contradict the economics of the Internet. Fifth, neutrality is a very poor and ineffective recipe for media pluralism, and as such should not be invoked as the basis of future media policy. All these conclusions have important consequences for the debate on the future EU policy for the Digital Single Market.

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    Item Type: Other
    Subjects for non-EU documents: EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > information technology policy
    Subjects for EU documents: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Series and Periodicals: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Annual Reports: UNSPECIFIED
    Series: Series > Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels) > CEPS Special Reports
    Depositing User: Phil Wilkin
    Official EU Document: No
    Language: English
    Date Deposited: 20 Apr 2015 12:34
    Number of Pages: 23
    Last Modified: 20 Apr 2015 12:34
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/63766

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