Court Signals Green Light for Net Neutrality Arguments

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said that oral arguments scheduled for January and now February will take place, partial government shutdown or not. That means the court will hear arguments in the Mozilla et al. challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's Restoring Internet Freedom order. Various groups including the Benton Foundation joined Mozilla in suing the FCC over the decision of the Republican majority to repeal rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization, as well as to reclassify both wired and wireless broadband as Title I information services.

Joining Mozilla in suing the FCC were Vimeo; Public Knowledge; Open Technology Institute; the States of New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington; the Commonwealths of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; the District of Columbia; the National Hispanic Media Coalition; NTCH, Inc.; the Benton Foundation; Free Press; the Coalition for Internet Openness; Etsy, Inc.: the Ad Hoc Telecom Users Committee; the Center for Democracy and Technology; the County of Santa Clara and the Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District; the California Public Utilities Commission; and INCOMPAS.