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FCC Takes Next Step Toward Net Neutrality Repeal. 22 State Attorneys Generals Immediately Sue
Ajit Pai, the FCC Chairman who is owned by the telecom and cable industry, is pushing closer to grant their wishes. Named by Trump in January 2017, Pai has been working every day since then to repeal rules that classify internet service as a utility. Under the Pai plan, high-speed internet service will no longer be treated like a public utility with strict rules, as it is now. Instead, he said, the industry "should largely be left to police itself.”
The Federal Communications Commission is working toward officially taking current net neutrality rules off the books. The agency took the requisite formal step of publishing the rules on Thursday, opening the door for lawsuits from a number of state attorneys general and advocacy groups.
[T}he rules, put in place in 2015, banned cable and telecom companies from blocking or slowing down any websites or apps. They also prohibited broadband providers from striking special deals that would give some websites or apps 'priority' over others..... The FCC's repeal will allow both blocking and throttling by Internet providers....
And they filed lawsuits immediately.
Twenty-two Democratic state attorneys general on Tuesday launched a lawsuit aimed at preserving net neutrality on Tuesday, the same day the FCC published its rule striking the regulations in the Federal Register.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman....is leading the suit along with other state attorneys generals....Their lawsuit hinges on the Administrative Procedure Act, which they argue prevents the FCC from “arbitrary and capricious” redactions to already existing policy.
Elsewhere, Democrats in Congress are trying to stop this nonsense as well.
Senate Democrats have also been pushing for a special congressional vote to block regulations from going into effect, but have so far been one vote short of overcoming the Republican majority. A similar vote would also face a very high hurdle in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
The clear winners of a repeal of net neutrality are the giant companies (Comcast, Verizon, etc) that provide internet access to phones and computers. The repeal will allow them to exert more control (ie charge more) over the online experiences of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Nothing would prevent the Comcasts of the world from creating new high-speed serving packages for your small business to force payment of hundreds more per month to keep your web site up. Comcast, AT&T, and others get to charge piles of money for services they are already providing. That money comes from our businesses and from every company we buy things from. Ultimately it comes from each of us.
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