The European Parliament today voted in favor of net neutrality rules that, in theory, will prevent ISPs from blocking and throttling traffic or implementing paid fast lanes. But MEPs did not adopt amendments designed to strengthen the rules by closing potential loopholes.

"A series of amendments to a regulation on how Internet traffic is managed in Europe were all rejected by MEPs," the BBC said.

The vote was reportedly 500 to 163 in favor of the plan.

We described the EU's plan yesterday, explaining how it's different from net neutrality rules in the US. The EU and US rules look almost identical on the surface, but exceptions to the rules could in practice give ISPs more leeway in Europe.

While the EU is banning paid prioritization—schemes in which an online service would pay for priority over other online services—the exemption for so-called "specialized services" is broader in Europe than it is in the US. The EU wants to let ISPs give priority to things like IPTV, high-definition videoconferencing, and health care services such as telesurgery, but net neutrality advocates believe the exception can be abused and potentially slow down the content of online service providers that don't pay ISPs.

The EU is not outlawing zero-rating, in which companies can pay ISPs to exempt their content from users' data caps. The US doesn't outlaw this, either, but the Federal Communications Commission set out a more clearly defined complaint process that could prevent ISPs from implementing zero-rating in ways that harm competition or consumers.

The EU will also let ISPs manage different types of Internet applications differently from others, but it says that the decisions have to be made based on technical analysis and not commercial considerations. There's also an exception that lets ISPs impose traffic management when there's "impending network congestion," not just congestion that's already happening.

The EU plan was criticized by tech companies such as Reddit and BitTorrent, as well as World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

On the plus side for net neutrality advocates, the EU did not previously have any continent-wide net neutrality rules. The legislation adopted today will be developed into regulations that would go into place in April 2016.

Also today, the parliament voted to ban data roaming charges beginning June 15, 2017.