Analyzing The EU Open Internet Regulation: Utilitarianism, Deontology, Virtue, And Contract Theories

Overview of the EU Open Internet Regulation

Discuss about the EU Open Internet Regulation.

The Open Internet Regulation for EU enables the direct right to end users of the internet access services and the spreading of lawful content as per the user’s choice (Vedder, 2004). The rules and regulations that follow in accordance to it allow net neutrality to all the users of internet encompassing the geographical area. It also puts forward the regulation that explains that internet traffic would be treated without any discriminatory actions, any kind of blocking, prioritisation or throttling (Cooper & Brown, 2015). The reasonable network traffic is also allowed on accordance to this regulation for net neutrality, in addition to it, it also allows high quality of internet propagation for the users. This does not only provide internet facility for individual users over the area of constitution of European Parliament and Council, but also to moving cars and 5G connections over the telecommunication networks (Tavani and Jeff, 2012). The following report would thus follow the EU Open Internet Regulation and go by the Utilitarianism Theory, Deontology Theory, Virtue Theory and Contract Theory behind the entire scenario following the rules and regulations behind it. This would help in the complete understanding of the rules and regulations behind the EU Open Internet.

Utilitarianism theory is a perceptive to view the ethical theories through a normative approach and only ensures the idea of right or wrong based on the consequences or the outcomes of the specific situation. This theory puts into light the general view about the prospective and morally correct outcome without making any decision based on the personal discretion or perspective of an individual’s own scope of interest (Holznagel & Hartmann, 2016). The utilitarianism theory of the EU Open Internet Rules and Regulations depends on the outcomes of the situation, that is, the outcomes of the net neutrality in European countries as well.

Internet Neutrality generally refers to the fact that allows the Internet Service Providers or the ISPs to manage internet it provides to the customers receiving their internet services, or what the European law addresses as the end-users. It bars the internet traffic to shutdown or slower the propagation of the internet system allowing quality of service or QoS to the internet users (Wright, 2017). Thus, it can be said that the outcome of the net neutrality regulations focus on a positive point where none of the users are discriminated on their choice of the usage of internet, only if they share lawful content over the internet.

Utilitarianism Theory and the EU Net Neutrality

The end results of this situation have emerged out to be on the positive side of the benefit of the entire European population. The Utilitarianism theory behind the EU Net Neutrality had affected the general European mass positively as it enabled even the treatment of specialized services, like an internet connected moving car with quality of services (McMenemy, 2016). Since, all the aspects of net neutrality had a positive effect on the people on the condition that only legal content was shared; Utilitarianism ethics had been restored in this scenario.

Deontology Theory is based on the justification of a scenario, that is, an outcome of a situation to see if it abides by the rules and regulations of the respective legislations (Zamir & Medina, 2017). This is characterized by going through the actions performed in the scenario and justifying it by the rules and regulations it is bound under. Only then the situation can be vindicated as a fulfillment of the deontological ethics.

In this scenario for the EU Open Internet regulation, the outcomes would be analyzed according to the legislations under which the Open Internet in EU is registered (Patton, Sawicki & Clark, 2015). The regulations regarding the utilization of the Open Internet in the European Council and the effect of it within the entire European mass is as follows:

1. Regulation (EU) No 182/2011: This regulation respects the personal rights of an individual and through it, the principles of the legislative is measured by the Charter particularly. It prefers the protection to personal data, freedom in expressions, information and conduction of the businesses (Savin, 2017). The objective of this legislation was to maintain the common rules that are necessary to safeguard the access of a user to open internet and to abolish the roaming surcharges of retails. However, the effect of the Open Internet has made this particular state achievable at the Union Level but would be difficult to achieve at Member States.
2. Regulation (EU) No 531/2012: This regulation states that the difference that prevails between the domestic tariffs and the roaming tariffs should be turned to zero. In simpler terms, it could be said that the legislation implies that there should be no difference in the cost of internet service in domestic and roaming tariffs. However, this legislation could not be attained since the wholesale charges of the observed levels had put the internet service providers in legitimate trouble. Therefore, it was implied that the regulations to diminish the roaming tariff charges would be applied only from 15 June 2017 given the condition that all the issues impending from the roaming charges in wholesale markets have been addressed (Savin, 2017). The commission has been allowed to conduct a review of the roaming wholesale market and legislative measures would only follow on accordance to the outcome of the respective review.

Therefore, if the legislations of the open internet in the European continent are found to be justified by the deontology ethics since this legislative measure takes the wellbeing of everyone in the system into account. It not just only implements the QoS for the end-users but also provides the ISPs with justified clarification for the services they provide.

The fact that the Open Internet Regulation for EU allows a user to freely use the internet provided by the ISPs within the European legislation measures also states that all the legislations would only be applicable if the content shared via internet is lawful (Frieden, 2015). That is, the shared content must not bring potential harm to any country, individual, community or organization moral or physical harm (Rowe & Rrushi, 2016). Only then the internet usage by an end-user would be justified.

Since, the virtue of ethical theory emphasizes on the character of an individual and his or her own discretion, these legislative measures are justified since it enhances the morally correct actions of an individual.

The contract theory of ethics states that a rule or regulation can only be justified as ethically correct if an individual or the entire mass is dependent upon the rules or regulations to agree unanimously on the amongst the form of the society the individuals live in.

Deontology Theory and the EU Open Internet Regulation

The Open Internet Regulation for EU has been embraced by the entire European population with a little objection from the other countries (Delfino, 2016). However, that does not count as an objection as per the contract theory of ethics, since it depends on the country and individual lives in. Therefore, it can be said that the rules and regulations are justified according to the contract theory of ethics.

Conclusion

Therefore, in conclusion it can be said that the case study regarding the Open Internet Regulation for EU falls justified to the ethical clarifications according to the theories of ethics; that is, the Utilitarianism Theory, Deontology Theory, Virtue Theory and Contract Theory. Analyzing the case study in accordance with the theories makes it clear that the legislations have put all the aspects of the situations into account, making sure that no harm is offered to any of the elements in the system. The ideas do not just think about providing Quality of Services to the end-users but also makes sure that the Internet Service Providers do not incur a loss due to the services they prove to their customers as per the legislative measures. However, it has to be kept in mind that the laws are only applicable if the content shared via internet are absolutely lawful and do not virtually, morally or physically cause harm to any organization or individual.

References

Cooper, A., & Brown, I. (2015). Net neutrality: Discrimination, competition, and innovation in the UK and US. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT), 15(1), 2.

Delfino, R. (2016). European Union legislation and Actions. European Review of Contract Law, 12(1), 50-55.

Frieden, R. (2015). Network Neutrality in the EU, Canada and the US. Intereconomics, 50(6), 363-364.

Holznagel, B., & Hartmann, S. (2016). The EU ‘open Internet access’ regulation and its impact on the digital press. Convergence, 22(5), 488-493.

McMenemy, D. (2016). Digital Ethics: A UKeiG White Paper.

Patton, C., Sawicki, D., & Clark, J. (2015). Basic methods of policy analysis and planning. Routledge.

Rowe, N. C., & Rrushi, J. (2016). Law and Ethics for Software Deception. In Introduction to Cyberdeception (pp. 241-250). Springer, Cham.

Savin, A. (2017). EU Internet law. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Tavani, Herman T, and Jeff Buechner. 2012. “Autonomy and Trust in the Context of Artificial Agents.” In M. Decker and M. Gutmann, eds. Evolutionary Robotics, Organic Computing, and Adaptive Ambience. Berlin, Germany: LIT Verlag, in press.

Vedder, Anton. 2004. “KDD, Privacy, Individuality, and Fairness.” In R. A. Spinello and H. T. Tavani, eds. Readings in CyberEthics. 2nd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, pp. 462–70.

Wright, J. D. (2017). Antitrust Provides a More Reasonable Regulatory Framework than Net Neutrality.

Zamir, E., & Medina, B. (2017). Deontological Morality and Economic Analysis of Law.