SpainLey 11/2022 General de Telecomunicaciones (LGT), Open Internet Access and Equal Treatment of Traffic by Internet Access Providers (Article 76)
Ley 11/2022, de 28 de junio, art. 76
In force since .
A common carriage rule binding private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Prohibition
What it requires
- If you provide an internet access service, treat all traffic equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, regardless of the sender and receiver, the content accessed or distributed, the applications or services used or provided, or the terminal equipment used (Article 76(3)).
- Apply only traffic management measures that are reasonable: transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate, based on objectively different technical quality requirements for specific categories of traffic rather than commercial considerations, not monitoring specific content and not kept longer than necessary (Article 76(3)).
- Do not block, slow down, alter, restrict, interfere with, degrade or discriminate between specific content, applications or services or specific categories of them, except where necessary and only for as long as necessary to comply with law or court judgments, preserve the integrity and security of the network, or prevent imminent congestion, treating equivalent categories of traffic equally (Article 76(3)).
- Do not let your agreements with end users or your commercial practices limit the right of end users to access and distribute information and content and to use and supply applications, services and terminal equipment of their choice (Article 76(1) and (2)).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
If you get it wrong
Penalty structure
Article 107(40) makes a failure to meet article 76 a serious infraction, and article 109(1)(c) fines a serious infraction up to 2,000,000 euros.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- EUR
- Fixed cap
- 2,000,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
The Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures holds the sanctioning power in the cases article 114(1) does not assign to the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia or the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (Article 114(1)(c)).
Settledness
- As of
What this law does
Article 76(1) gives end users the right to access information and content through their internet access service, to distribute them, to use and supply applications and services, and to use the terminal equipment of their choice, regardless of the location of the end user or the provider or of the origin or destination of the information.
Article 76(2) provides that agreements between internet access providers and end users on commercial and technical conditions, and any commercial practice of the provider, do not limit the exercise of those rights.
Article 76(3) requires internet access providers to treat all traffic equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, regardless of the sender and receiver, the content accessed or distributed, the applications or services used or provided, or the terminal equipment used. Article 76(3) allows reasonable traffic management measures, which must be transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate, and may not rest on commercial considerations.
Article 76(3) bars internet access providers from blocking, slowing down, altering, restricting, interfering with, degrading or discriminating between specific content, applications or services, except where necessary and only for as long as necessary to comply with law or court judgments, preserve the integrity and security of the network, or prevent imminent congestion.
Article 107(40) makes a failure to meet the obligations of article 76, and of Regulation (EU) 2015/2120, a serious infraction. A serious infraction is fined up to 2,000,000 euros under article 109(1)(c).
Article 114(1)(c) gives the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures the sanctioning power in all cases other than those assigned to the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia and the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, and over the infractions assigned to them where they fall within its own material scope.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app provides telecom services.
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