The European Union mistakenly said an exception to net neutrality rules – covering spam filtering and blocking porn – was part of its new compromise deal.

The European Commission, European Parliament and Council of the EU earlier today announced an agreement on net neutrality, as well as an end to roaming.

The deal included four instances when net neutrality rules need not be applied.

One of the four exceptions was filtering spam as well as allowing parents to set up parental filters that block pornography or gratuitous violence from children.

However, the commission now admits it was a mistake to include this exemption because it had not been agreed, without giving details of who was holding back.

The three other exceptions were the blocking of illegal content; preventing the misuse of networks, for instance viruses, malware or denial of service attacks; and finally to minimise network congestion that is “temporary or exceptional”.