“I think Tim Wu coming up with the name net neutrality was really brilliant because it sounds really good,” said the economist Michael Katz. “But it is a really bad idea at a fundamental level.” Katz, formerly chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission and now a Berkeley economics professor, thinks the internet should be regulated like most other parts of the economy.
A Democrat, Barack Obama’s former Federal Trade Commission chief Jon Leibowitz, dismissed network neutrality repeal as no big deal in the pages of the Wall Street Journal on Dec 13. He celebrated that the FTC would get restored authority to aggressively police the internet for anti-competitive or unfair conduct.The op-ed contained an unusual disclaimer:" Leibowitz was a Democratic commissioner at the FTC from 2004-13 and chairman beginning in 2009.
[Commentary] In essence, the Federal Communications Commission has given Internet service providers the legal power to blackmail any content provider that does not pay them with the threat of a slowdown in service delivery. The FCC clearly has put the ISPs profits above the benefits of consumers and of the overwhelming majority of businesses.
[Commentary] The vote by the Federal Communications Commission repealing its 2015 network neutrality rules will have an especially negative impact on online innovation.
With network neutrality repeal, internet service providers (ISPs) are free to block or throttle any content they don’t like. That could include video, text and images distributed by people whose voices are underrepresented in mainstream society, including women and people of color.
[Comentary] The Federal Communications Commission GOP majority did what it was intended to do with net neutrality, which was ignore overwhelmingly positive public support across political affiliations and kill the policy anyway. Aside from hurting real sources of innovation, rather than the fake sources like finding new ways to charge more, it opens the door for people of more moderate means and the poor to be at a greater disadvantage than before.
Reducing effective Internet access has a profound impact on low- to moderate-income individuals:
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