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Gov. Jerry Brown signs bill to restore net neutrality in California

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Fierce legal battles loom as California moves to enforce Obama-era open internet policies struck down by the Trump administration.

LOS ANGELES — California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law on Sunday a bill to restore net neutrality protections that President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission killed late last year.

The new law prohibits internet service providers, or ISPs, from blocking or slowing access to legal online content, demanding special fees from websites to prioritize their traffic or charging customers for special exemptions to caps on their data use.

Brown signed the measure without comment, setting up almost certain showdowns with both ISPs and the FCC, which barred states from setting their own rules in its repeal last December of protections instituted during the administration of President Barack Obama.

The U.S. Justice Department quickly filed a federal action in U.S. District Court in Sacramento to block the new law Sunday night. In a statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said: “Under the Constitution, states do not regulate interstate commerce — the federal government does. Once again the California legislature has enacted an extreme and illegal state law attempting to frustrate federal policy.”

Earlier this month, Ajit Pai, the former telecommunications industry lawyer whom Trump promoted to chairman of the FCC last year, called the California measure “illegal,” describing it as “the most egregious example” of a state’s determination to flout the FCC policy.

“Only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area,” Pai said in a speech (PDF) to the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a free-market research institute.

In a statement Sunday night, Pai welcomed the Justice Department response.

“The internet is free and open today, and it will continue to be under the light-touch protections of the FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order,” he said.

The country’s largest cable and internet providers, led by Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp., lobbied strenuously for the FCC’s ruling last year. FCC records (PDF) show that Comcast specifically urged the commission to preempt state and local moves to restore the Obama-era policies.

ISPs like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast — the parent company of NBCUniversal and NBC News — say that they don’t block or slow down any legal content and that they support an open internet. They have argued, however, that it’s unrealistic for them to comply with a patchwork of regulations across the country.

“We all support strong and enforceable net neutrality protections for every American — regardless of where they may live,” Jonathan Spalter, president and chief executive of the U.S. Telecom Association, the telecommunications lobby, said by email Sunday night.

“But this bill is neither the way to get there, nor will it help advance the promise and potential of California’s innovation DNA,” Spalter said. “Rather than 50 states stepping in with their own conflicting open internet solutions, we need Congress to step up with a national framework for the whole internet ecosystem and resolve this issue once and for all.”

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/gov-jerry-brown-signs-bill-restore-net-neutrality-california-n915221?cid=eml_nbn_20180930

BREAKING NEWS The F.C.C. has scrapped net neutrality rules.

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WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to dismantle landmark rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband companies power to potentially reshape Americans’ online experiences.

The agency scrapped so-called net neutrality regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content. The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone services.

The action reversed the agency’s 2015 decision, during the Obama administration, to better protect Americans as they have migrated to the internet for most communications.

Ajit Pai, the chairman of the commission, said the rollback of the rules would eventually help consumers because broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast could offer people a wider variety of service options. Mr. Pai was joined in the 3-to-2 vote by his two fellow Republican commissioners.

“We are helping consumers and promoting competition,” Mr. Pai said in a speech before the vote. “Broadband providers will have more incentive to build networks, especially to underserved areas.”

 

FCC Chairman: Obama and I in Agreement on Net Neutrality

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By Gautham Nagesh

The Federal Communications Commission and President Barack Obama agree on Net neutrality regulations to ensure a completely open Internet with no barriers, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said. Paid prioritization, if it proves to be “anticompetitive or anti-consumer or anti-innovative or degrades the network,” is “dead on arrival,” Wheeler said.

Tech firms begin ‘go-slow’ protest in battle for the web “net neutrality”

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Sites install widgets to show how the internet would look if regulators caved in to big cable companies on net neutrality

in New York

89f92185-f409-439d-b29f-f2b184f8a963-460x276Kickstarter on Wednesday morning made its point on how new rules would ‘destroy net neutrality’. Photograph: screengrab

Much of the internet went on a “go-slow” protest Wednesday as some of the world’s largest tech companies began a protest over proposals that could create fast web lanes for some companies.

Tech firms including Netflix, Etsy, FourSquare, KickStarter, Mozilla, Reddit, PornHub and Vimeo installed a widget on their sites to show how they believe the internet would look if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) overturns “net neutrality” rules.

Some sites, like Netflix, used a popup widget to explain the slowdown. See more images here Photograph: screengrab

The FCC is currently redrawing its rules after a series of legal challenges from cable and telecoms companies undermined its authority to regulate the internet. One proposal could allow internet service providers to offer fast lanes to higher-paying customers, a move critics charge would break net neutrality – the principle that all traffic is treated equally online.

The organisers have called on supporters to spend the day calling Congress to lobby the FCC to protect neutrality.

Evan Greer, co-founder of Fight for the Future, a pressure group helping to organise the protest day, said in an email: “Net neutrality is tough to explain to people, so we wanted to organize an action that actually shows the world what’s at stake. I think the three most hated words on the internet right now are ‘Please wait, loading … ’

“Unless internet users unite in defence of net neutrality, we could be seeing those dreaded ‘loading’ wheels a lot more often on some of our favourite websites, while monopolistic companies get to decide which content gets seen by the most people.”

Several other large internet companies are expected to back the day of action, which is being coordinated by Silicon Valley lobby group Engine. Two of the world’s biggest porn sites, Pornhub and RedTube, have said they will join, promising “in-your-face” support.

“We’ll be displaying an official widget from battleforthenet.com. We won’t be shutting down, or streaming your porn slower. There will be a big in-your-face message that users will need to close. We hope to reach around 50m people on Sept 10,” a Pornhub spokeswoman wrote on Reddit.

Pornhub and RedTube are owned by Mindgeek, a Luxembourg-based conglomerate that claims to be one of the top five bandwidth consumers in the world, generating 1.7bn visits per month.

The organizers, Engine, are directing people to call or email policymakers with their concerns. A similar campaign led to the FCC being flooded with comments on the net neutrality legislation – so many tha

Goodbye net neutrality (F.C.C., in Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane

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The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals.
The proposed rules are a complete turnaround for the F.C.C. on the subject of so-called net neutrality, the principle that Internet users should have equal ability to see any content they choose, and that no content providers should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to consumers.
The F.C.C.’s previous rules governing net neutrality were thrown out by a federal appeals court this year. The court said those rules had essentially treated Internet service providers as public utilities, which violated a previous F.C.C. ruling that Internet links were not to be governed by the same strict regulation as telephone or electric service.
The new rules, according to the people briefed on them, will allow a company like Comcast or Verizon to negotiate separately with each content company – like Netflix, Amazon, Disney or Google – and charge different companies different amounts for priority service.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/technology/fcc-new-net-neutrality-rules.html?emc=edit_na_20140423