The Politics of Regulating the Internet

[Commentary] The bizarre politics of network neutrality revolve around proponents’ desperate attempts to represent the Federal Communications Commission’s regulations as something that they are not.

First, proponents falsely claim that the FCC is not regulating the Internet by defining “the Internet” differently than it is actually defined in law, by the Supreme Court or by the FCC previously. Second, proponents falsely claim that the FCC Open Internet Order only maintains the status quo – the order represents a radical shift from the status quo, current law and previous FCC precedent. Third, proponents claim that the order would create “certainty and predictability.” Does anyone really believe that imposing new controversial Internet regulations for the first time somehow creates “certainty and predictability?” Fourth, proponents claim the FCC is only preserving the “Open Internet.” When the internationally accepted definition of an “open” market has always meant free trade without government regulation, what kind of tortured logic can assert that a previously-unregulated Internet market that is now regulated by the FCC for the first time, somehow preserves openness?

[Cleland is President of Precursor LLC a consultancy serving Fortune 500 clients]