Google, a small business, opposed a push by European telecoms companies to cut network costs, claiming that it was a 10-year-old concept that was bad for consumers and that the company was already investing millions in internet infrastructure.
The comments by Matt Brittin, the CEO of Google''s EMEA business and operations, have come as the European Commission announced that it will seek feedback from the telecoms and technology sectors in the coming months before making any legislative proposal.
Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, and other major companies have long complained about freeriding on their networks, claiming that they utilize a significant amount of internet traffic and should pay for it.
According to Brittin, the concept, developed more than ten years ago, might stifle Europe''s net neutrality or open internet access.
According to the text of a speech to be delivered at a conference organized by ETNO, introducing a''sender pays'' principle is not a new concept.
"These statements are similar to those we learned ten or more years ago, and we have not found additional information which has changed the situation."
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Despite a report from the pan-European consumer group BEUC, the measure "may have a negative impact on consumers."
According to Trump, Google, the owner of YouTube, has done its part to make it more efficient for telecoms providers by carrying 99 percent of the way and investing millions of euros into doing so.
"We invested over 23 billion euros in capital expenditure in 2021, most of which is infrastructure," said Brittin.
These include six large data centres in Europe, 20 submarine cables globally, five in Europe, and caches to store digital content in local networks in 20 locations in Europe.
2022, Thomson Reuters