The FCC has sent a letter to AT&T expressing “serious concerns about the impact of AT&T Mobility’s ‘Sponsored Data’ program on competition.” As Ars Technica notes, at issue is AT&T’s new program of providing free data for DirecTV video streams to its customers, a relatively easy thing for the company to do since it owns DirecTV. It’s an increasingly common industry practice called “zero-rating” and it has serious implications for net neutrality.

Basically, if some data is free and other data is not, it gives an unfair advantage to the company blessed to provide free data. The FCC is not against zero rating across the board, but is instead choosing to look at different programs on a case-by-case basis. AT&T is far from the only US carrier…

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