Net Neutrality Comments to FCC Overwhelmingly One-Sided, Study Says

A large percentage of the 3.7 million network neutrality comments received by the Federal Communications Commission came in the guise of form letters -- but a smaller proportion than might be expected.

A study by the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for government transparency, found that at least 60 percent of a set of 800,000 net neutrality comments released in bulk by the FCC were form letters written by organized campaigns. The foundation said that was “actually a lower percentage than is common for high-volume regulatory dockets.” In highly debated federal rule-making often more than 80 percent of comments come in form-letter format. Over all, the comments studied were overwhelmingly one-sided. Less than 1 percent were clearly opposed to net neutrality. And about 5 percent had anti-regulation messages, although those included seemingly contradictory camps, one calling for consumer freedom and another advocating freedom for Internet service providers.