UC Irvine

Zero-rating practices and associated throttling practices have been an issue of intense public policy debate. This article evaluates such practices under the Open Internet Order's transparency, no-throttling, and general conduct rules. The evaluation separately considers application-agnostic zero-rating, class-based zero-rating, edge provider-based zero-rating, and affiliated zero-rating. The article evaluates sponsored data programs (AT&T Sponsored Data, Verizon FreeBee Data), zero-rating and throttling of video streaming (T-Mobile Binge On), free mobile Internet access to specific edge providers (T-Mobile Music Freedom), and zero-rated or unlimited access to affiliated content (AT&T Data Free TV, Verizon go90, Comcast XFINITY Stream TV).