November 2017

The FCC's Order Is Out, We've Read It, and Here's What You Need to Know: It Will End Net Neutrality and Break the Internet

The short version is that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s order takes the Network Neutrality rules off the books and abandons the court-approved Title II legal framework that served as the basis for the successful 2015 Open Internet Order. Here are a few of the many lowlights in the draft order and a quick explanation of why they’re wrong:

The legal road ahead for net neutrality and the Restoring Internet Freedom Order

[Commentary] It is nice that network neutrality proponents are finally embracing the arguments that those of us who have been critical of the FCC’s Open Internet efforts have been making for nearly the past decade. This newfound concurrence, however, does raise interesting questions about how the inevitable legal challenge to the Restoring Internet Freedom Order (RIFO) will proceed.

Chairman Pai is pitching Internet deregulation as a return to Bill Clinton’s policy

President Donald Trump treated “Bill” — as in Clinton — like a four-letter word during his campaign for the White House, but now Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is invoking the 42nd president's name in a positive way to help sell a plan to repeal a major Internet regulation. “We're going to return to President Clinton's framework, which existed from 1996 all the way until 2015,” Ajit Pai said Nov 27 on “Fox & Friends.” “Under that light-touch, market-based framework, we saw tons of investment in infrastructure.

President Trump attacks media in his first post-Thanksgiving tweet

President Donald Trump returned from the Thanksgiving holiday with another attack on one of his favorite targets — the news media — suggesting Nov 27 on Twitter a “contest” to determine which television network deserves a “fake news trophy.”

Time Inc. Sells Itself to Meredith Corp., Backed by Koch Brothers

The Meredith Corporation — the owner of Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens and AllRecipes — agreed to purchase Time Inc. (the publisher of once-prestigious magazine titles including Time, Sports Illustrated and People) in an all-cash transaction valued at nearly $3 billion. The deal was made possible, in part, by an infusion of $650 million from the private equity arm of Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers known for using their wealth and political connections to advance conservative causes.