Parsing the FCC's Restoring Internet Freedom Order

The Federal Communications Commission has finally released the language of its controversial Restoring Internet Freedom order, which the Republican majority approved Dec 14 against visceral opposition from Democrats--edits to the item continued through this week. Here are some key passages of the final language of a decision that Internet services have celebrated, Democratic members of Congress are trying to overturn, and activists say spells the end of an open internet as we know it.

That key language includes that case-by-case enforcement by other agencies of perceived non-neutral actions covers all of the 'net ecosystem--including the Googles and Facebooks and Twitters or the world--and that such an approach is preferable to "thou shalt not" mandates on ISPs alone because it does not nip "new innovative business arrangements" in the bud and allows the "ever-evolving internet ecosystem" to ever evolve. The order defines just what ISPs will have to disclose under enhanced rules that still manage to reduce the reporting requirements in the 2015 order.