In EU, Google Accused of YouTube "Free Ride"

An anonymous reader passes along a Financial Times piece that covers a push by EU telecoms to get Google to pay them directly — years after US ISPs began rattling that sword, to little effect thus far. "Some of Europe's leading telecoms groups are squaring up for a fight with Google over what they claim is the free ride enjoyed by the technology company's YouTube video-sharing service. Telefónica, France Telecom, and Deutsche Telekom all said Google should start paying them for carrying bandwidth-hungry content such as YouTube video over their networks.... Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to 'dumb pipes' because the internet search and advertising company pays the network operators little or nothing for carrying its content. Rick Whitt, a senior policy director at Google in Washington ... said Google was spending large amounts on its own data networks to carry its traffic to the point where it is handed over to telecoms companies round the world." Note that FT.com operates on a "first few per month free" paywall basis.

Comments

Re:Interesting

[Totenglocke]

more European companies have been hit than American ones by the anti-monopoly and anti-kartel legislation.

From the articles I've read about the EU fining companies, I think you meant to say "more European companies have been hit than American ones by the anti-profit legislation." The EU massively abuses their power to throw fines at profitable companies just to rake in some extra cash, and the companies are too focused on making profit to have principles, so they pay the extortion fees instead of just pulling out of the EU and letting the citizens demand the government to behave so that they can have access to the luxuries the rest of the world has.