Technology
Net Neutrality Rules Could Lead to Legal Quagmire
(USA Today) – The Federal Communications Commission can expect pushback in Congress and the courts after it makes official its move to regulate the Internet like a public utility to prevent fast lanes on the Internet.
FCC chief Tom Wheeler is expected to propose new net neutrality rules to commissioners by Thursday, with a vote expected at the commission’s Feb. 26 meeting.
The new rules would likely increase the FCC’s regulatory power to oversee the wired Net and mobile wireless as common carriers, like traditional telephone service, using Title II, a provision of the Communications Act of 1934.
But the adoption of such regulatory powers will likely lead to lawsuits, just as Verizon sued in 2013 to block the open Internet rules that the FCC adopted in 2010. Those rules aimed to ensure that all legal content on the Internet be treated equally by Internet service providers and not blocked or deliberately slowed. A federal court last year decided in favor of Verizon and overturned the FCC’s rules.
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