BEREC is the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications.
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Sky, BT and TalkTalk all chose to block access to adult sites after coming under pressure from the government.
The net neutrality rules are meant to prevent broadband operators from favour specific sources of content such as commercial partners, however blocking pornography represents something of a grey area given the lack of any clear legal framework in the UK.
Shine Technologies, the Israeli company that is working with a handful of European mobile companies on ad blocking trials, was highly critical of the guidelines.
An Ofcom spokesman said: “Ofcom will monitor compliance with the new rules, and look into any complaints received”.
Blocking adult content falls into a grey area, with no clear legal framework in United Kingdom legislation, and providers have relied on providing the ability to opt in to protect themselves from falling foul of the rules.
To the relief of open internet access advocates, the new European Union guidelines include strengthened safeguards against both “fast lanes” and “zero-rating”, and only allow for “specialized services” in a limited number of cases where data “optimization” is “objectively necessary”, including connectivity for driverless cars and remote medical applications.
“We expect national telecom regulators to thoroughly apply these net neutrality rules and ensure companies swiftly update their practices”.
David Cameron said in October past year that he had secured an opt-out from the rules enabling British internet providers to introduce porn filters.
The telecoms industry said it was essential to avoid “restrictive interpretations” of the net neutrality law. Just like the original, overturned 2010 net neutrality rules in the States, Europe’s new rules (which took effect April 30) are packed with all manner of loopholes giving exemption for “specialized services” and “class-based discrimination”, as well as giving the green light for zero rating.
A spokesperson for BT said: “BT offers filtering at both network and device level dependent on the customers preferences”.
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BEREC’s guidelines stipulate that consumers must be able to choose the online content they want to access, whenever they want and using the applications of their choice.
