Zero-Rating: Subsidizing Internet Access for New Consumers - Essay Sample

Introduction

Zero-rating is the provision on internet access with no financial costs under particular conditions, for instance, providing access to some websites or exemption of sites from the allowance of data or by subsidizing the services with advertising. The benefits for the new consumers who highly rely on mobile networks to access the internet services are subsidized by their access to the services from these service providers. Some internet services like Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook have created special programs to support the zero-rating as a way of offering their services more broadly into the developing markets. The paper explains that zero-rating leads to the provision of poor quality and biased internet content. The ICPs should emphasize the fundamental basic policy on the provision of internet content fairly to the different social groups, the poor and the rich.

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Relevant Facts

The zero-rating leads to the provision of poor-quality internet content and unfair services to the consumers by the ICPs. For instance, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), after their investigation on the Binge, they found out that T-Mobile was throttling video streams, understandable and straightforward. However, in the attempt to deliver video streams contents across its network, T-Mobile's Binge On services was throttling video streams that had not been opted into the services. Typically, the EFF argued that the infraction was a vivid violation of the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC's) open internet rules, which were implemented in 2015.

Policies

First, the ICPs should provide content fairly to all the poor and affluent customers, and secondly, the ICPs should provide quality and trustworthy content to their customers (Carrillo 2015). Thus, the ICPs should emphasize the necessary fundamental policies on fairness and honesty. The IEEE Computer Society and ACM make these decisions and policies. The stakeholders affected by these policies are the internet content providers and the internet content accessors.

Analyzing Each Policy

The ICPs should emphasize the fundamental basic policy on the provision of internet content relative to the different social groups, the poor, and the rich. This policy underlines that, on the zero-rate, the ICPs should be honest in the information provided. This policy passes the tests of justice and fairness. As far as zero-rating is concerned, the developed countries are deprived of their content fairness provision at the expense of developing countries, thus making this policy a reasonable universal system (Baase 2013). On the other hand. The ICPs should provide quality and trustworthy content to their customers. This policy passes the tests on justice and fairness in the context of zero-rating as the content givers are obligated to give quality services to their customers. Typically, in the zero-rating, the customers are given low-quality services compared to those not using the zero-rating system. Thus, this policy makes a reasonable universal policy.

Principles and Values

The goods to be protected in the zero-rating systems are the quality of services offered by the ICPs and the fairness of the content to different worlds in terms of development (Baase 2013).

Consequences

When the ICPs do not provide quality and trustworthy content to their customers, it would be a violation of the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC's) open internet rules. Thus, if the information provided is not trustworthy, it can be banned, and the sender gets legal penalties. On the other hand, if the internet content providers do not give their content fairly to all their customers, their zero-rate system would lose its reputation.

Applicable Laws

End-users have their rights for accessing as well as distributing internet content and information. While also providing services and applications and services, utilizing terminal equipment of their choices via their internet access services, irrespective of the ICPs' locations or the content destinations or origin. Agreements between ICPs and end-users on commercials as well as technological conditions and the attributes of internet services accessibility for instance, price, speed, and the volume of the data, do not have the power to limit the exercises of the end-user's rights laid down.

Tradeoffs

The zero-rate internet has sacrificed the internet access fee to earn a competitive advantage. This system has enabled firms like Google to be more competitive over the other firms which do not have a zero-rate system. Through this system, it has gained millions of customers and thus increasing its income compared to the loss of internet fees. The zero-rate internet access has facilitated more effective advertising (Jaunaux & Lebourges 2019). Through this system, for instance, Facebook has been able to reach many people since they can see the advertisements for free and thus being able to cover the loss incurred by not charging the internet access fee.

Ethical Issues Concerning the Laws

The law suggests that an end-user has the right to access and distribute the internet contents without being hindered by the origin or the destination of the data. However, the services provided have a poor quality such that it is difficult to distribute the information.

Ethical Issues for the Relevant Professional Code of Ethics

As per the professional code of ethics, the ICPs should provide quality services; however, in the zero-rating internet access, their services are poor and sometimes lacks trustworthiness. Also, the professionals are obligated to the fairness of their services, but in this system, they tend to offer poor quality compared to other payable. Thus, these professional codes are not consistent with the ethical tradeoffs.

References

Jaunaux, L., & Lebourges, M. (2019). Zero-rating and end-users' freedom of choice: an economic analysis. Digital Policy, Regulation, and Governance. https://www.orange.com/en/content/download/46015/1356612/version/2/file/ZRf%C3%A9vrier2018.pdf

Baase, S. (2013). A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computing Technology (4th Edition) 4th Edition. San Diego State University http://docshare03.docshare.tips/files/24807/248072508.pdf

Carrillo, A. J. (2015). Having Your Cake and Eating It Too: Zero-Rating, Net Neutrality, and International Law. Stan. Tech. L. Rev., 19, 364. https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/19-3-1-carrillo-final_0.pdf