EU could regulate Whatsapp like phone companies in the future

This is according to a draft of the EU Commission for the revision of the telecom guidelines, which was made available to the news agency Reuters on Monday. Among other things, it is to stipulate how Whatsapp and Co. deal with requests from security authorities and how they are allowed to earn money with their customers' data. The EU Commission did not want to comment on this. Behind the planned new rules for the companies from the U.S. is an old dispute. Companies such as Skype argue that, as pure Internet providers, they do not fall under the same laws as the large telecom companies. The latter, in turn, argue that their rivals offer the same services as they do.

Same rules of the game

Deutsche Telekom, Spain's Telefonica and France's Orange have been calling for a level playing field for all providers for years. "Unlike telecom groups, the new Internet services have the right to evaluate location and communications data for business purposes," explained Orange, formerly known as France Telecom. The ex-telecom monopolists' anger comes not only from the alleged unequal treatment, but also has financial reasons. In recent years, they have lost billions in revenue because EU citizens prefer to use free messaging services from Web rivals instead of toll phone calls and SMS. To put long-established telephone companies on an equal legal footing with Internet providers, the EU would probably have to change its own rules. These define which companies can be regulated at all. According to the current definition, the companies concerned must bear responsibility for the electronic transmission of signals and also partially influence the path of the information. This is clearly the case for telecommunications companies with their own extensive networks, but Internet providers almost always use the services of others.

Whatsapp in sight

This is the reason why the Whatsapp service belonging to Facebook, Google or the Microsoft subsidiary Skype have so far been virtually unregulated in the EU. According to the Commission's draft, Internet communication services in which the user dials a telephone number for the connection may fall under the stricter regulation for telecom services. This would mean, for example, that emergency numbers would have to be built into the programs in the future. The commission plans to present the draft, which is part of a large-scale realignment of telecom rules in the community of nations, in September. (SDA)