WASHINGTON - The legal fight over a 2016 lower court ruling upholding Obama-era net neutrality regulations aimed at ensuring a free and open internet - rules that have since been repealed by President Donald Trump’s administration - came to a formal end on Monday, with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to take up the matter.
The Trump administration and internet service providers had asked to justices to wipe away the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that had temporarily preserved the net neutrality regulations championed by Democratic former President Barack Obama. But the justices refused to hear the appeals, leaving the lower court ruling in place.
The brief court order noted that three of the court’s conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, would have thrown out the appeals court decision. Chief Justice John Roberts and new Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh were both recused from the case.
SPONSORED
The Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 in December along party lines to reverse the rules adopted under Obama in 2015 that had barred internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic, or offering paid fast lanes, also known as paid prioritization.
Obama’s rules, intended to safeguard equal access to content on the internet, were opposed by Trump, a Republican.
The new FCC rules went into effect in June. They give internet service providers greater power to regulate the content that customers access, are now the subject of a separate legal fight after being challenged by many of the groups that backed net neutrality.
The Justice Department has also filed suit to block California’s state net neutrality law from taking effect in January.
The net neutrality repeal was a win for providers like Comcast Corp, AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc. It was opposed by internet companies like Facebook Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc, which have said the repeal could lead to higher costs.
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday unveiled plans to repeal a landmark 2015 order that barred internet service providers from blocking or slowing down consumer access to web content, and said the regulator will prevent states and cities from adopting similar protections.
Ajit Pai, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, testifies before a Senate Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 20, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
FCC chief Ajit Pai, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump in January, said the commission will vote at a Dec. 14 meeting on rescinding the so-called net neutrality rules championed by Democratic former President Barack Obama that treated internet service providers like public utilities.
With three Republican and two Democratic commissioners, the move is all but certain to be approved. Trump, a Republican, expressed his opposition to net neutrality in 2014 before the regulations were even implemented, calling it a “power grab” by Obama.
“The FCC will no longer be in the business of micromanaging business models and preemptively prohibiting services and applications and products that could be pro-competitive,” Pai said in an interview, adding that the Obama administration had sought to pick winners and losers and exercised “heavy-handed” regulation of the internet.
SPONSORED
“We should simply set rules of the road that let companies of all kinds in every sector compete and let consumers decide who wins and loses,” Pai added.
The net neutrality rules, aimed at giving consumers equal access to web content, also forbade broadband providers from charging consumers more for certain content, a practice called “paid prioritization.”
Pai said state and local governments “need to be preempted” from imposing their own net neutrality rules because broadband internet service is “inherently an interstate service.” The preemption is most likely to handcuff Democratic-governed states and localities that could have considered their own plans to protect consumers’ equal access to internet content.
The FCC’s planned action represents a victory for internet service providers including AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc, which had urged the FCC to revoke the rules. The companies have said that repealing the could lead to billions of dollars in additional broadband investment and eliminate the possibility that a future presidential administration could regulate internet pricing.
In July, a group representing major technology firms including Google parent Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc had urged Pai to drop plans to rescind the rules.
At the December meeting, the FCC will vote on Pai’s proposal to require internet service providers to disclose whether they allow blocking or slowing down of consumer web access or permit so-called internet fast lanes to facilitate paid prioritization. Such disclosure will make it easier for another agency, the Federal Trade Commission, to act against internet service providers that fail to disclose such conduct to consumers, Pai said.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) logo is seen before the FCC Net Neutrality hearing in Washington February 26, 2015. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
The FCC under Obama regulated internet service providers like public utilities under a section of federal law that gave the agency sweeping oversight over the conduct of these companies.
A federal appeals court last year upheld the legality of the net neutrality regulations, which were challenged in a lawsuit led by a telecommunications industry trade association.
‘GONE FOR GOOD’
The FCC’s repeal is certain to draw a legal challenge from advocates of net neutrality. Many Democrats and some internet firms argue that without the rules, internet providers will threaten the openness of the internet.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter, “The internet is the public square of the 21st century. Unless we all speak out against the @FCC’s efforts to gut #netneutrality, the free and open internet we know today could be gone for good.”
The planned repeal represents the latest example of a legacy achievement of Obama being erased since Trump, a businessman-turned-politician, took office in January. Trump has abandoned international trade deals, the landmark Paris climate accord and environmental protections, taken aim at the Iran nuclear accord and closer relations with Cuba, and sought repeal Obama’s signature healthcare law.
The new order will reclassify internet providers as “information services” rather than a “telecommunication service,” which means the FCC has significantly less authority to oversee the web. The FCC granted initial approval to Pai’s plan in May, but had left open many key questions including whether to retain any legal requirements limiting internet providers conduct.
Pai, who has moved quickly to undo numerous regulatory actions since taking over as chairman, is mounting a broad deregulatory agenda and has pledged to take a “weed whacker” to unneeded regulations. Pai said he had not shared his plans on the rollback with the White House in advance or been directed to undo the order by White House officials.
Pai said the FCC is adopting a “market-based deregulatory approach.” The FCC also will vote to eliminate the “internet conduct standard,” which gives the FCC far-reaching discretion to prohibit any internet service provider practice that it believes violates a long list of factors and sought to address future discriminatory conduct.
Pai said his goal is to use a “light-touch market-based” regulatory approach, arguing the internet operated well before the rules were adopted in 2015. The internet “is the greatest free market innovation in history,” Pai said, adding that government regulations could hinder that.
Open net access should be seen as a basic right that all Americans should enjoy, President Obama has said.
He said he supported net neutrality, which means all data travels on cables with the same priority.
There should be no paid prioritisation system that slowed services if they did not pay a fee, he added.
Official plans to end net neutrality and let firms run fast and slow lanes for data have generated wide debate in the US.
More than three million comments about the proposed change were lodged with the US regulator overseeing the debate. Stronger powers
"We cannot allow internet service providers to restrict the
best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for
services and ideas," said President Obama in a video statement on the issue.
He said net neutrality had been built into the "fabric" of
the net since its creation and had been essential to its growth and
continuing influence.
He called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to
"answer the call" heard in the millions of comments left on its website
in support of net neutrality and implement "the strongest possible
rules" to protect the principle.
Net neutrality revolves around the idea that ISPs should not be allowed to manipulate the data flowing to their customers.
The FCC is considering changing rules governing data traffic,
following a court ruling in January that allowed ISP Verizon to charge
to carry traffic from bandwidth-heavy services such as Netflix.
Net neutrality advocates have called on the FCC to reclassify
broadband providers as "Title Two telecommunications services" rather
than their current status as "information services".
They say this would allow the watchdog to treat the firms as utilities, allowing it to block fast-lane deals. More time
However, telecoms industry leaders have questioned whether the
FCC has the power to do this, and have warned it would create an
anti-innovation "government, may I?" culture.
ISPs say they need the ability to charge because without it
they will not be able to invest in and update America's net
infrastructure.
The FCC has suggested letting ISPs charge for different
levels of internet access if they meet a new standard of "commercial
reasonableness" that will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
Many net firms object to the idea of charging, saying it will
undermine net neutrality and lead to the creation of net fast and slow
lanes.
In his statement, President Obama said the FCC should create
new rules so "neither the cable company nor the phone company will be
able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online".
He said net access should be considered a Title Two service.
Mr Obama did admit that his idea was nothing more than a
suggestion and that the FCC had the "ultimate final say" in how it
addresses the issue.
FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said President Obama's statement was
an "important and welcome" contribution to the net neutrality debate
and re-iterated the regulator's opposition to net fast lanes.
He added that the issue was so complex that the FCC would
need more time to work out all the legal problems surrounding
re-classification of net services. It needed this time, he said, to
ensure that the changes would survive legal challenges.
"We must take the time to get the job done correctly, once
and for all, in order to successfully protect consumers and innovators
online," he said in a statement.
