AT&T announced a new scheme today that allows app-makers and websites to pay for the bandwidth you consume using their services – a move digital rights activists say breaches the spirit of net neutrality.

The second largest mobile provider is taking advantage of the data caps it imposes on subscribers by letting companies sponsor the bandwidth their wares use. The consumer who enjoys those sponsored services will not have that broadband count against their monthly data allotment. Sponsorship is not mandatory – if a company doesn't pay AT&T, the bandwidth will count against the user's cap as always.

Online rights groups said the move is anti-competitive and takes advantage of a loophole in Federal Communications Commission rules prohibiting ISPs from favoring one service over the other. For the most part, however, those FCC guidelines adopted in 2010 apply to cable, fiber and DSL internet providers, not wireless ones.

"This definitely violates the spirit of network neutrality," says John Bergmayer, a senior staff attorney with Public Knowledge. "Once you have a data cap, set artificially low, that opens the door to all kinds of shenanigans."

AT&T, however, touts the program as a "win-win" for business and consumers. Ralph de la Vega, the company’s chief executive, says applications with a "sponsored data" icon will allow consumers to "know the data related to that particular application or video is provided as part of their monthly service."

Free Press, another Washington, D.C. digital rights group, says the changeover, expected to be operational in the coming weeks, will increase the costs for businesses, which will then pass those costs to the consumer. What's more, the plan does not reduce subscribers’ monthly fees or increase the amount of broadband for non-sponsored wares.

"While sponsored data will be pitched as a way to save customers money, it's really just double charging," Matt Wood, the policy director at Free Press, said in a statement.

"Content and app providers that can't pay this new toll to reach customers will be at a huge disadvantage, and may never get off the ground in the first place if they can't afford AT&T's sponsor fees. Letting the carriers charge more or less money to reach certain sites is discriminatory, and it's not how the Internet is supposed to work."

Other wireless carriers are likely to follow suit, Bergmayer said. Verizon was reportedly in talks last year with ESPN over a similar program.

AT&T did not disclose pricing for the program, but said deals would differ among its partners.

The company’s mobile subscription service, however, costs about $110 monthly for 4 gigabytes of "mobile share" data and unlimited phone and texting.

The first partners to sign up for the sponsored program include UnitedHealth Group, the Boston advertising star up Aquto and Kony Solutions, an Orlando software maker.

By a 3-2 vote in 2010, the FCC adopted net neutrality rules, which became effective a year later.

The commission outlined three basic protections:

Wireless and wireline broadband providers must disclose the network management practices, performance characteristics, and commercial terms of their broadband services. Wireline, or fixed broadband providers, may not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices. Mobile broadband providers may not block lawful websites, or block applications that compete with their voice or video telephony services.

Finally, fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic. That rule, however, does not apply to wireless services.

Wireless was not included as a concession in a bid to get companies onboard.

Still, Verizon is challenging the the FCC's rule-making authority before a federal appeals court. A decision is pending.

Net neutrality became a hot-button issue in 2008, when the FCC ordered Comcast to stop interfering with the peer-to-peer service BitTorrent, which can use a lot of bandwidth and is often associated with online piracy.