Your answer also isn't quite correct. And it's related to net neutrality. However there two things interwingled here that should be separate: * Contract law: M

Your answer also isn't quite correct. And it's related to net neutrality. However there two things interwingled here that should be separate: * Contract law: Meta lost a court case about a contract for IP-Transit with DT. This is legit and correct - they continued using the private interconnect and by german law this requires you to pay. This is clear cut. * Telekom peering policy / brigandage: DT is the only major provider that is not present at any IX in Europe. They don't do any public peering. My local small ISP has better IX connectivity than DT while having 1/100th of the userbase. They require from hosters/content providers to sign contracts with them that are very overpriced (about 10x more than regulary private peering deals). They basically use their market power in germany (40% of internet users using their network) to force any internet service into buying an expensive contract with them. This is a thing that should be regulated via the german regulator or EU wide. If other ISPs act like DT any server hosting provider needs to pay every bigger ISP for access to their customers and this would be the end to the internet as we know it. That's why it's a big topic. But legally DT can do it at the moment and they act like this for over 10 years now. There were older disputes with a big german hoster Hetzner, Init7, Level3... now Meta is playing on another level and hopefully that bully behavoir from DT stops and others follow suit and these overpriced contracts stop.