I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators. By updating the rules for the Internet, we can preserve what’s best about it — the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things — while also protecting society from broader harms. From what I’ve learned, I believe we need new regulation in four areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability.
As a general principle, internet service providers aren’t supposed to erect barriers between the users they serve and the websites those users want to visit. They tend to observe this rule even in places like Australia and New Zealand that don’t have net neutrality policies that prevent ISPs from blocking access to websites. An exception tends to be when those takedowns come at the behest of law enforcement, perhaps out of concern for public safety. But the telecoms companies in New Zealand and Australia didn’t decide to kick websites offline in collaboration with law enforcement.
C Spire and T-Mobile have been duking it out in dueling letters to the Federal Communications Commission concerning T-Mobile rural plans which, according to T-Mobile, are contingent on its planned merger with Sprint being approved by regulators. T-Mobile has said it would broadly expand fixed wireless service to rural areas if it obtains Sprint’s vast spectrum holdings.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission are very different in our mandates and our legal authority. The FTC is, principally, a law enforcement agency. It is not a sector regulator like the FCC. There are key differences between conduct prohibited by the FCC’s Open Internet Order, and conduct that the FTC can reach now with our antitrust and consumer protection jurisdiction. Antitrust law is sufficiently flexible and dynamic to cover a wide range of activities.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that some advocates of network neutrality saw a political advantage in fomenting fear about the policy’s end. “Net neutrality” is a “very seductive marketing slogan,” Chairman Pai said. But “ultimately what it means is government regulation of the Internet.” “As to the question of why people are upset, I’ll be candid.
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