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“Just trust that the companies will tell us when they do something bad. If they do, we might be able to tell them not to do it any more.”
This is the spirit of how the internet will be regulated under new rules put forward by Federal Communications Chairman Ajit Pai. The rules, released on Wednesday, undo the strong net neutrality protections put in place under the Barack Obama administration—and then even go beyond that.
Here is how the internet would be regulated under Pai’s proposal:
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There would be no more rules against paid prioritization, blocking websites, or other similar activities. Internet providers would be able to do whatever they want.
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If internet providers decide to do something like give preferential treatment to one company in exchange for cash, they would theoretically have to report that publicly, though there are major loopholes there.
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Once reported, the Federal Trade Commission would decide if these moves were “anticompetitive.”
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If the FTC didn’t like what was happening, it could make suggestions to Congress or maybe bring a lawsuit. Read more…
More about Net Neutrality, Ajit Pai, Business, and Politics
On December 14, the FCC will vote on whether or not to roll back Obama-era policies protecting a free and open internet. In fact, during yesterday’s announcement of the upcoming vote, the FCC neglected to mention the historic 22 million comments on the issue, the majority of which were negative.
If the FCC’s refusal to acknowledge the vast public outcry against its plan to gut net neutrality isn’t enough of an outrage, its total disinterest in investigating how that same comment system may have been gamed by fake users posing as real Americans adds a bit more insult to injury. Suspicions arose earlier this year that a person or an organization of some kind was… /https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F657011%2F5845382b-2679-401c-981f-a9fd1caa280c.jpg)
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The Federal Communications Commission will drive a stake through its own net neutrality rules roughly this time next month, if Chairman Ajit Pai gets his way. Sources at Bloomberg and Reuters say the FCC’s head honcho will showcase plans next week for a vote to repeal a 2015 order regulating web traffic throttling. If Pai gets his way, the vote will go down just ahead of winter… /https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F651523%2F1e32c036-e729-4eef-ad9c-b898ca5b7fbd.jpg)