Zero-rating

Zero-rating is the practice of providing Internet access without financial cost under certain conditions, such as by permitting access to only certain websites or by subsidizing the service with advertising or by exempting certain websites from the data allowance. Commentators discussing zero-rating present it often in the context of net neutrality. While most sources report that use of zero-rating is contrary to the principle of net neutrality, there are mixed opinions among advocates of net neutrality about the extent to which people can benefit from zero-rating programs while retaining net neutrality protections. Supporters of zero-rating argue that it enables consumers to make choices to access more data and leads to more people using online services, but critics believe zero-rating exploits the poor, creates opportunities for censorship, and disrupts the free market. Internet services like Facebook, Wikipedia and Google have built special programs to use zero-rating as means to provide their service more broadly into developing markets. The benefit for these new customers, who will mostly have to rely on mobile networks to connect to the Internet, would be a subsidised access to services from these service providers. The results of these efforts have been mixed, with adoption in a number of markets, sometimes overestimated expectations and perceived lack of benefits for mobile network operators. In Chile, the national telecom regulator ruled that this practice violated net neutrality laws and had to end by June 1, 2014. The Federal Communications Commission did not ban zero-rating programs, but it "acknowledged that they could violate the spirit of net neutrality". Since June 2014, U.S. mobile provider T-Mobile US has offered zero-rated access to participating music streaming services to its mobile internet customers. T-Mobile launched its plan called “Music Freedom” which would exempt users of T-Mobile from having to pay premium prices for access to music content; additionally, this content access would not count as part of an individual's cap, which is the limit they can reach before they are charged for data.