Network Neutrality

Even though our net neutrality policies are now legally viable and wildly popular, the leadership at the Commission wants to revisit Internet openness. It has started a proceeding that tears at the foundation of net neutrality. It has proposed cutting the rules we have and instead offering our broadband providers the power to favor sites, content, and ideas; the power to discriminate with our traffic; and the power to become censors and gatekeepers for all that is online. If you want an example, look no further than what happened during the last 14 days with the #MeToo movement.

We are weeks away, from broadband providers being given the green light, to freely engage in paid prioritization, blocking, throttling, or unreasonable discrimination at interconnection points. We are weeks away from the probability, of an entirely new and even wider divide – of those that can afford to pay for priority access, and others that cannot.

[Commentary] The exchange of information and ideas that takes place on the internet is more important now than ever. To protect it, we need to keep the current network neutrality rules in places. We need them to ensure that people working to make the world better can reach their intended audiences. We need them to ensure that artists everywhere continue to have a platform through which we can discover their work. Right now, the internet is a level playing field. The question the Trump administration needs to answer is: Why would you want to change that?

Equal protection of data under the law could be removed from the internet for US users. At a recent Keweenaw County Board meeting, Pasty.Net president Charles Hopper discussed the probability that net neutrality laws would be repealed in November by the Federal Communications Commission. Hopper offered one example of the burdens placed on his company as a result of being placed under Title II.

ADT filed a letter to urge the Federal Communications Commission to maintain core net neutrality protections for alarm providers, including preventing blocking or throttling and precluding anticompetitive prioritization schemes. ADT asserted the FCC has ancillary jurisdiction to adopt these specific net neutrality protections based on the FCC’s mandated responsibility in Section 275 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Verizon has asked the Federal Communications Commission to preempt any state laws that regulate network neutrality and broadband privacy. It is possible that state governments might impose their own rules to protect consumers in their states.

[Commentary] Those who look at Washington and see only gridlock and bickering should look to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as an exception. By implementing improved transparency and review processes in the past months, the FCC has achieved far more transparency than ever before. A shining example of improved transparency at the Commission is the current review of regulations that are hindering innovation and investment through policies tethered to the past.

Lisbon-based telecommunications firm MEO has been rolling out packages that provide users with data plans limited to specific apps. Customers using apps outside the package will be charged more for data. “[That’s] a huge advantage for entrenched companies, but it totally ices out startups trying to get in front of people which stifles innovation,” wrote Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA). “This is what’s at stake and that’s why we have to save net neutrality.”

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on network neutrality and the role of antitrust for Nov 1. The Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, which will hold the hearing, has not released details, but the event is likely to address concerns that internet service providers stifle competition. The hearing comes as Republicans in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put their finishing touches on a plan to scrap net neutrality. The agency has not released a timeline for when it will release and vote on the final version of Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to roll back the rules, but telecommunication insiders speculate that a vote could come as soon as December.

[Commentary] Here are just a few ways internet service providers (ISPs) have throttled or blocked content in the past:
Packet forgery: In 2007 Comcast was caught interfering with their customers’ use of BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer file sharing
Discriminatory traffic shaping that prioritizes some protocols over others: a Canadian ISP slowed down all encrypted file transfers for five years
Prohibitions on tethering: the Federal Communications Commission fined Verizon for charging consumers for using their phone as a mobile hotspot
Overreaching clauses in ISP terms of service, such as prohibitions on sharing your home Wi-Fi network
Hindering innovation with "fast lane" discrimination that allows wireless customers without data plans to access certain sites but not the whole Internet
Hijacking and interference with DNS, search engines, HTTP transmission, and other basic Internet functionality to inject ads and raise revenue from affiliate marketing schemes, from companies like Paxfire, FairEagle, and others
Individually and collectively, these practices pose a dire threat to this purely democratic engine of innovation that has allowed hackers, startups, and kids in their college dorm rooms to create the free Internet that we know and love today.

[John Ottman is Chairman and co-founder of Minds, Inc. a social media network.]