Tell the FCC It Must Clarify Its Rules to Prevent Loopholes That Will Swallow Net Neutrality Whole

The Federal Communications Commission has released draft rules to reinstate net neutrality, with a vote on adopting the rules to come on the 25th of April.
The FCC needs to close some loopholes in the draft rules before then.
Net neutrality is the principle that all ISPs should treat all traffic coming over their networks without discrimination.
Net neutrality is critical to ensuring that the internet remains a vibrant place to learn, organize, speak, and innovate, and the FCC recognizes this.
The draft mostly reinstates the bright-line rules of the landmark 2015 net neutrality protections to ban blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.
The loophole is especially bizarre because the 2015 FCC already got this right, and there has been bipartisan support for net neutrality proposals that explicitly encompass both favoring and disfavoring certain traffic.
It's a distinction that doesn't make logical sense, doesn't seem to have partisan significance, and could potentially undermine the rules in the event of a court challenge by drawing a nonsensical distinction between what's forbidden under the bright-line rules versus what goes through the multi-factor test for other potentially discriminatory conduct by ISPs.
Laws more protective than federal net neutrality protections-like California's should be explicitly protected by the new rule.
California's net neutrality is in some places stronger than the draft rules.
Where the FCC means to evaluate zero-rating, the practice of exempting certain data from a user's data cap, on a case-by-case basis, California outright bans the practice of zero rating select apps.
The language as written unnecessarily sets a low bar for a future Commission to find California's, and other states', net neutrality laws to be preempted.
We urge the Commission to clearly state that, not only is California consistent with the FCC's rules, but that on the issue of preemption the FCC considers its rules to be the floor to build on, and that further state protections are not inconsistent simply because they may go further than the FCC chooses to.
Overall, the order is a great step for net neutrality.
Its rules go a distance in protecting internet users.
We need clear rules recognizing that the creation of fast lanes via positive discrimination and unpaid prioritization are violations of net neutrality just the same, and assurance that states will continue to be free to protect their residents even when the FCC won't.
Net neutrality is the principle that all internet service providers treat all traffic coming through their networks without discrimination.
The Commission's rules as currently written leave open the door for positive discrimination of content, that is, the supposed creation of fast lanes where some content is sped up relative to others.
As such the Commission must create bright line rules against all forms of discrimination, speeding up or slowing down, against apps or classes of apps on general traffic in the internet.
Just as we received net neutrality in 2015 only to have it taken away in 2017, there is no guarantee that the Commission will continue to find state net neutrality laws passed post-2017 to be consistent with the rules.
To safeguard net neutrality, the Commission must find that California's law is wholly consistent with their rules and that preemption is taken as a floor, not a ceiling, so that states can go above and beyond the federal standard without it being considered inconsistent with the federal rule.


This Cyber News was published on www.eff.org. Publication date: Tue, 16 Apr 2024 19:28:07 +0000


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