Obamanet’s Regulatory Farrago

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality order lacks evidence of why the Internet, the greatest source of innovation in modern times, must now submit to rules written for the monopoly telephone system. The order doesn’t include basic market and economic analysis that courts demand to justify new regulations, especially when an agency reverses its own precedents.

Obamanet rejects the Internet’s key operating principle of permissionless innovation. Under the new rules, entrepreneurs must seek regulatory approval before launching new products and services -- or beg for forgiveness afterward. The order submits broadband providers to the Ma Bell “just and reasonable” test for utility pricing and practices. It sets a price of $0 for what they can charge bandwidth hogs like Netflix and YouTube. “Net neutrality” supporters wanted to break up the cable-telecom broadband duopoly. Instead the order suppresses new broadband competitors like Google Fiber by submitting them to requirements written for monopolists. Besides broadband, the order covers virtually every activity on the Internet under a new “general conduct rule.” Congress has good reason to act without waiting for judges: A supposedly independent agency abandoned its standards for rulemaking to submit to the wishes of a president. Bipartisan supporters of the open Internet should enact legislation to block this move and save the Internet as we know it.