The European Parliament on Tuesday passed Net neutrality legislation to a chorus of boos from Net neutrality proponents.

The European Union has found consensus on the common principles of Net neutrality -- no blocking, no throttling and no prepaid prioritization -- said Günther H. Oettinger, commissioner for the digital economy and society. All traffic has to be treated equally on the Internet.

However, the rules have three major loopholes, Net neutrality supporters said: Providers can prioritize specialized services if they treat the open Internet equally; the rules allow "zero rating," which lets ISPs exempt apps from users' monthly bandwidth caps; and ISPs can implement traffic management measures and group some services into categories of traffic that can be sped up or slowed down when the ISPs want.

"Net neutrality on its surface is basically nondiscrimination writ large," said Mike Jude, a research manager at Frost & Sullivan.

"if you take the argument to its ridiculous extreme, it says everybody should be able to do what they want with no degradation of performance because that's discrimination, and you get unlimited connection for a ridiculously low price," he told the E-Commerce Times.

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