This week AT&T announced that it would give special treatment to DirecTV’s new streaming service by excluding it from AT&T customers’ wireless data caps. Ever since we started writing about net neutrality, we’ve argued that zero rating is a bad, anti-competitive idea that in the long run will hurt consumers, though it may appear like a huge consumer benefit in the short-term. Now we know the FCC seems to agree, based on letters it sent today to Verizon and AT&T about their zero rating and sponsored data programs.

You can read more about those letters here, but I want to focus on an example in one paragraph from the FCC’s letter to AT&T that really highlights how zero rating and sponsored data are intended to be used together to shake…

Continue reading…