Study shows that countries that permit Facebook's beloved "zero rating" programs end up with more expensive wireless data

Facebook loves "zero rating," when an internet provider takes bribes from online services to exempt them from data charges on their networks: Facebook says that having a roster of (Facebook-approved) services that are free-to-use benefits the poorest people in a country (and the fact that this also makes "Facebook" synonymous with "internet" for whole nations is merely incidental).

But reality has a well-known anti-Facebook bias, which is why all the studies done on the supposed benefits of zero-rating have shown that the practice is harmful in every way: primarily benefiting the rich, not the poor, for example.

Now, a careful, comprehensive study of 30 European countries by Epicenter.works finds that zero-rating encourages carriers to collude with Facebook to raise prices on non-zero-rated services, making it much harder to escape Facebook's orbit (and other big incumbents).

Many countries and territories are debating zero rating today, from California to the FCC, and the same old arguments about access for poor people and bridging the digital divide keep getting trotted out to support what is ultimately an anti-competitive tie-up between the biggest telcos and the biggest online services to freeze out smaller competitors.

This study is an important addition to the scholarship rebutting this nonsense, and as Net Neutrality moves back into US Congress, it's a handy document to keep around for your racist Facebook uncle and other low-information types who are being astroturfed into thinking that Net Neutrality is "government control of the internet."

Based on the evidence, zero rating not only serves as a means to enhance ISPs power over the Internet, but its also how they charge consumers more money for wireless service.