> the FCC’s decision to overturn the 2015 rules violates both federal law as well as harms internet users and innovators.
What was illegal about the FCC decision?
What was illegal about the FCC decision?
Mozilla seeks review of the Order on the grounds that it violates federal law, including, but not limited to, the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. §§ 151 et seq., as amended, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and FCC regulations promulgated thereunder; abdicates the FCC’s statutory mandates; is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq.; and is otherwise contrary to law
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Ultimately, the most relevant flaw in the FCC’s decision may come down to the following:
Broadband has to be defined as either an information service or telecommunications service. The first is “the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information,” while the second is “the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received.”
I’ll let you take a guess here and just say that to repeal net neutrality, the FCC had to engage in some rather weird semantic gymnastics to arrive at the answer it wanted. That may not hold up in court.
Pardon me legal ignorance. Why this dichotomy?
The Act also defines both terms, and it seems quite clear that broadband service is a telecommunications service, not an information service.
That being said I think that net neutrality promotes competition on the internet as a whole, which I think is more impactful and positive, but in this line of thinking is probably a little besides the point.
I don't really think ending net neutrality promotes competition between broadband providers either. I think either way you have entrenched natural oligopolies, just with NN they're not getting in the way of a free and open internet.
Comcast already refused to make infrastructure upgrades so that customers (who were paying Comcast) could get the services they wanted (Netflix). If net neutrality protections are removed, they could just throttle them out of existence.
I, as a one man web dev shop, run about 20 or so websites. Some are info sites, some are SaaS, some are just hobbies. Comcast won't throttle traffic to me because they don't care about someone as small as me -- but if Comcast and all the other ISPs start offering "fast lane service" for cheaper prices that give prime service to big places like Facebook/etc (who can afford to pay the ISPs kickbacks), and degraded or "normal" service to everyone else (me), then I am harmed just the same.