Digital freedom activists are guardedly calling the just announced Federal Communications Commission rules for the internet use a victory in the battle for a free internet. “The framework described by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, if enacted, would ban throttling, blocking, and paid prioritization by Internet service providers; reclassify broadband as a telecommunications utility, and bring mobile networks into the same rules,” writes Joshua Brustein, Bloomberg News, February 4, 2015. Brustein also writes that the rules would still allow the internet providers to use a practice called zero-rating to favor certain customers.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is encouraged by the rules in that they promise to promote competition but is concerned that new government regulatory powers aren’t used to limit freedom. (EFF, February 4, 2015, by Corynne McSherry)
The American Civil Liberties Union called the new rules announced in an op-ed in Wired on February 4, “a landmark victory for free speech and the open internet.” The rules would allow the disadvantaged in society affordable access to the internet. (ACLU, February 4, 2015, press release)
In her analysis, GigOm’s Stacey Higginbotham, February 4, 2015, lauds the new rules for keeping internet service providers from discriminating against certain types of traffic in their networks. She also writes that the new government plan will restore transparency rules struck down by the courts in 2013. She is skeptical about “the catch-all rule” in place in ensure an open internet in the future; it may also provide an administration hostile to a free internet the leeway to approve restrictive practices.
AT & T and Verizon plan to challenge the new FCC rules in court in contesting their inclusion as common carriers for the internet. They are also expected to argue that internet service providers are information services under law so should not be reclassified as telecommunications service providers. (Ars Technica, February 3, 2015, by Jon Brodkin)