New FCC net neutrality proposal: Not as rigid as ISPs think

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed outright prohibitions on only three things: blocking lawful sites, applications, services or devices; impairing or degrading lawful traffic based on its content or origin; and prioritizing traffic from sites for a fee ("paid prioritization") or from affiliates. Aside from the three no-no's outlined above, ISPs don't have to get the commission's permission to do anything.

Instead, Wheeler's proposal would require consumers or site operators who object to something an ISP is doing to file a complaint, which the FCC's enforcement bureau will then review. That's a much more flexible approach than the one the commission took with local phone monopolies, who had to obtain prior approval for seemingly every initiative. This ex-post-facto review would be used in two ways under Wheeler's proposal. One is a general standard of openness and neutrality for ISPs. Such a standard would be applied when ISPs do things that appear to favor certain sites but don't actually block, degrade or prioritize traffic. In such a circumstance, the FCC would use Title II's just-and-reasonable standard to measure whether the ISP "unreasonably interfered with or unreasonably disadvantaged" rival sites. The other situation when ex-post-facto review would be used is when a content provider or network operator outside the last mile believes that an ISP is hindering its ability to interconnect, that is, to deliver traffic into the ISP's network. Interconnection is not a net neutrality issue, but it's something the FCC has been exploring in response to complaints by Netflix. For those, the FCC would examine the ISP's actions to make sure they were just and reasonable.