Can the FTC Really Handle Net Neutrality? Let’s Check Against the 4 Most Famous Violations.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and defenders of the draft Order insist that a combination of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Section 5 (15 U.S.C. 45), state consumer protection law, and anti-trust law will provide more than adequate protection for consumers and anyone who doubts this is — you guessed it — fear mongering. Happily, we do not need to speculate on this entirely. We can simply apply the proposed rules in the draft Order and the protections cited by the draft Order and its defenders and apply them to the four most significant network neutrality violations on record:
 
(1) The 2013-14 “peering dispute” between Netflix and the four largest broadband Internet access service (BIAS) providers — Comcast, Time Warner Cable (now Charter), AT&T and Verizon;
(2) The 2012 decision by AT&T to limit Facetime to the highest tier plan on its mobile service;
(3) The 2007-08 blocking of peer-2-peer (p2p) applications such as BitTorrent by Comcast;
(4) The 2005 blocking of Vonage VOIP calls by the ISP Madison River.
 

Under the existing 2015 rules, the FCC can address and resolve each of these. Under the FTC/State consumer protection law/Sherman Act approach, the only one of these actions subject to any sanction is the 2008 Comcast/BitTorrent blocking, and even then only for the misrepresentations to customers denying its “network management” decision to disrupt p2p traffic.