EU Fair Share Debate

The EU Fair Share Debate is a debate initiated by the European Commission to research and potentially suggest legislation. The debate has started based on a request from European operators wanting large content providers (such as, but not limited to, Netflix, Google’s Youtube, TikTok, etc) “content providers”, to pay some of the cost of delivering content in order for European operators (“internet connectivity providers”) to cover (part of) the costs of investments they need to make in expansion of their networks due to the growth of the internet traffic fueled by those content providers.

As content providers (but also internet connectivity providers) rely on third-party CDNs for the delivery of the content or rely on interconnection of their own CDNs with internet connectivity providers. Both content providers and CDNs will be affected by this in case such legislation happens. The debate is all about the (potential) impact it has if such legislation will or will not become reality and basically is a dispute with the large European operators versus the content providers and CDNs on the other side.

The CDN Alliance looks at the whole CDN Ecosystem covering content providers, CDNs and operators and has determined that such legislation is not in the benefit of the CDN Ecosystem as a whole and the end-users (business and consumers) within the EU. As such the CDN Alliance submitted its response as part of the questionnaire that the European Commission held in May 2023 with the main arguments why this will affect the CDN Ecosystem negatively. You can find the response here. The CDN Alliance believes that it needs to keep voicing its concerns about the impact such legislation might have on the CDN Ecosystem and therefore is active in monitoring and connecting and mobilizing the right parties to ensure such legislation will not happen.

If you are interested in knowing more about this project, please contact us for more information.