WASHINGTON — Last Friday, Verizon announced that its sponsored-data and usage cap-exemption program, marketed as FreeBee, would take care of data charges that Verizon customers might otherwise rack up for the carrier’s recently launched online video platform, go90.

According to the company’s press statement, this means that its post-paid wireless customers “can watch all of their favorite go90 video content anytime, on Verizon’s LTE network.”

As Free Press reported in a Feb. 4 issue brief (PDF), a carrier’s choice to exempt only some kinds of content and applications calls into question the rationale for data caps in the first place. Such exemptions implausibly suggest that broadband providers’ networks can handle more data — but only so long as it’s coming from certain sources.

Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood made the following statement:

"Verizon’s math is getting worse and worse. Instead of zero-rating go90, it needs to stop making up numbers on data caps and gouging Internet users.

"Sponsored-data programs raise red flags for open Internet advocates because they seek unprecedented payments from apps and websites while continuing to charge Internet users a hefty monthly price tag for their connections.

“The defense offered for FreeBee is that it saves Verizon customers from the excessive data fees that Verizon itself imposes on them in the first place. Verizon also claims that these sponsorships are available to all apps and websites on the same terms.

“However, when broadband providers favor their own video platforms with such exemptions, as Verizon and Comcast already do and as AT&T is contemplating, the anti-competitive impacts are especially clear. Verizon’s go90 should compete with other online video options on its own merits. It shouldn’t get a leg up because it’s owned by a giant broadband provider.

“In addition, these exemptions call into question the practice of charging users so much for their connections and for a monthly ‘bucket’ of data while simultaneously reaching out to wring additional tolls from websites, app makers and other content providers.

“The FCC has already begun to look into these data caps and exemptions, and it must act after it gathers all the facts on the latest schemes.”