Vodafone has insisted that internet companies should have to comply with national laws on privacy and consumer protection and rejected calls by Facebook, Google and other technology companies for a light-touch approach to policing the web.

Vittorio Colao, Vodafone’s chief executive, has in effect sided with Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, by saying internet companies need to comply with national rules that telecoms operators abide by.

Mr Colao’s Financial Times article risks fuelling existing tension between European telecoms operators and US tech companies that have warned against heavy policing of the web.

Tension has arisen because operators including Vodafone, Telefónica and France Telecom, want to charge online content providers for delivering their bandwidth-hungry video material to end-users. Google has previously rejected the case for paying the operators.

Mr Colao supports Mr Sarkozy’s call for tougher policing of the internet after highlighting regular media reports about web threats to consumer rights. “So Sarkozy is really right to argue that realising the full potential of the internet will also require an effective legal framework and that self-regulation will not be enough,” he says.

Mr Colao acknowledges the challenge of policing the web because internet companies operate in cyberspace and, unlike telecoms operators, may not be licensed in particular countries.

But he highlights how new UK legislation could enable regulators to order operators to block customers from visiting websites that supply pirated music and video.

He suggests such an approach could be extended to other areas, so that regulators could order operators to block access to websites accused of breaching national privacy or consumer protection rules.

Mr Colao also highlights how operators abide by national rules on consumer and data protection and national security, and bear the associated compliance costs.

He contends that internet companies should be subject to the same rules and costs.

Neelie Kroes, the commissioner responsible for the European Union’s digital agenda, is holding a summit in July and the telecoms operators hope she will confirm she is not planning “net neutrality” rules that would stop them levying fees on online content providers for high-quality delivery of their material.

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