We Can't Rely on the FTC to Defend Net Neutrality

The belief that the Federal Trade Commission will be able to fill in for the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality doesn’t hold much water. When it comes to net neutrality, the FTC is ill-equipped to regulate the industry in a number of ways, and all we have to do is look at the the way internet service providers used to act. Unlike the FCC, the FTC has little to no ability to create its own regulations. It also, by design, only acts after the fact, which hardly protects consumers, particularly if the shady behavior isn’t noticed right away by the powers that be. And in almost all cases, the FTC only cracks down when a company has deceived its customers, which won’t always apply in net neutrality cases. “As a practical matter, the FTC almost never enforces unless it determines that there is deception that has occurred,” Laura Moy, the deputy director of the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology, told the House Commerce Committee during a hearing on consumer privacy “There’s very little in the way of teeth when it comes to the FTC’s authority.” If that’s not convincing enough, there’s also the tricky matter of the fact that nobody's even sure if the FTC is allowed to regulate ISPs at all. A pending case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals between the FTC and AT&T will determine if common carriers—which currently includes ISPs—should be regulated under the FTC or the FCC.