As Republicans Concede, FCC Is Expected to Enforce Net Neutrality

Senior Republicans conceded on Tuesday that the grueling fight with President Obama over the regulation of Internet service appears over, with the president and an army of Internet activists victorious.

In the battle over so-called network neutrality, a swarm of small players, from Tumblr to Etsy, BoingBoing to Reddit, has overwhelmed the giants of the tech world, Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner Cable, with a new brand of corporate activism -- New World versus Old. The biggest players on the Internet, Amazon and Google, have stayed in the background, while smaller players -- some household names like Twitter and Netflix, others far more obscure, like Chess.com and Urban Dictionary -- have mobilized a grass-roots crusade. Republicans who had branded net neutrality “Obamacare for the Internet” have grown much quieter under the barrage.

“Tech companies would be better served to work with Congress on clear rules for the road. The thing that they’re buying into right now is a lot of legal uncertainty,” said Senate Commerce Committee John Thune (R-SD), who warned that the Federal Communications Commission’s new rule would face litigation from opponents and a possible reversal from a future, more Republican FCC “I’m not sure exactly what their thinking is.”