FCC Chief Ajit Pai Develops Plans to Roll Back Net Neutrality Rules

Apparently, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai laid out preliminary plans to roll back the agency’s network neutrality rules in a meeting with trade associations. The conversation shows that the FCC chairman is inching closer to making his plans public, possibly as soon as April.

The plans appear aimed at preserving the basic principles of net neutrality but shifting enforcement to the Federal Trade Commission, while undoing what Republican critics regard as the regulatory overreach of the FCC’s rules. Pai’s plans likely would reverse the reclassification of broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications service, so the FTC again would have jurisdiction over the telecommunications carriers. To preserve the basic tenets of net neutrality, the plans would require broadband providers to pledge to abide by net neutrality principles such as no blocking or paid prioritization of internet traffic. That would allow the FTC to go after violators for deceptive or unfair trade practices. Chairman Pai also is believed to be considering provisions to restore FTC oversight of broadband providers’ consumer privacy protections. GOP lawmakers, with the backing of Chairman Pai, recently passed a measure repealing an Obama-era FCC privacy rule that broadband providers criticized as unfairly restrictive. Pai’s plans could begin to be adopted as soon as the FCC’s monthly meeting in May, although the June meeting remains possibility.