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At least the EU is adamant that ISPs shouldn’t be permitted to block legal websites or services that conflict with their commercial interests. “First and foremost, users should be able to access and distribute the content, services and applications they want,” said European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes earlier this year.
“Discrimination against undesired competitors – for instance, those providing voice-over the internet services – shouldn’t be allowed.”

Yet, Ofcom doesn’t even regard this as a major issue. “When VoIP services were first launched in the UK, most [mobile] network operators were against permitting VoIP,” Blowers said. “We now know that you can find packages from a number of suppliers that do permit VoIP services.
So I’m not as pessimistic as some may be that this kind of gaming behaviour around blocking services will be a real problem.”

If the EU doesn’t drag the UK’s relaxed regulator into line with the rest of the world, it will be British internet users who have the real problem.[i]