Net neutrality in cross hairs
Internet firms brace for fight to save FCC’s 2015 broadband-flow rules.
NEW YORK — Internet companies are readying for a showdown with telecoms and the Republican-controlled government over a policy near and dear to their hearts: net neutrality.
Net neutrality basically prevents broadband providers from playing favorites or steering users toward, or away from, particular Internet sites. Under rules enacted during the Obama administration, the likes of Comcast and Verizon — which offer their own video services they’d very much like subscribers to use — can’t slow down Netflix, can’t block YouTube and can’t charge Spotify extra to stream faster than Pandora.
Broadband companies hate the net-neutrality rules, and they have an ally in new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit
Pai, who has repeatedly called the regulations a mistake.
Pai, in a speech Wednesday in Washington, began the formal process of rolling back the net-neutrality regulations passed in 2015 by a Democratic-majority FCC. Then a commissioner, the Republican Pai voted against the measure.
Pai said he would ask the agency next month to begin considering removing the strong legal authority that underpins the rules and to take suggestions for replacement regulations.
“Earlier today, I shared with my fellow Commissioners a proposal to reverse the mistake of Title II and return to the light-touch regulatory framework that served our nation so well during the Clinton Administration, the Bush Administration, and the first six years of the Obama Administration,” Pai said in the re-
marks, obtained by Bloomberg.
Pai’s objections have centered on the FCC’s decision to classify broadband as a telecommunications service to be regulated under a section of law known as Title II. That gives the FCC “unilateral authority to regulate internet conduct,” Pai wrote in 2015.
The government may downgrade federal prohibitions on anti-consumer and anti-competitive actions to voluntary commitments by Internet service providers. The Internet industry, which considers net neutrality essential for its business, isn’t standing still — and it may be keeping some of its most potent tactics in reserve.
Many Internet companies are already running the Washington playbook — lobbying Congress, schmoozing government regulators and signing letters of protest. Boston tech companies and venture capitalists met with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., last Friday to discuss defending net neutrality.
Smaller companies have made the loudest noises so far. Engine, a policy group for startups, is calling up small Internet companies to keep
them updated and asking them to sign a letter that urges the FCC not to dismantle the netneutrality rules.
Etsy took along sellers to meet with legislators or their staff members in Washington last month although the company said the visit involved other issues in addition to net neutrality. Roku, the streaming-video gadget maker, hired lobbyists to set up Washington meetings for the first time.
The industry’s giants, however, have mostly stayed silent beyond offering blanket statements of support for net neutrality. The Internet Association, which speaks for Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Uber, did call on Pai to support net neutrality earlier this month. Things could get noisier when the FCC begins to formally review a rollback.
Meanwhile, the FCC chairman has also been looking for allies. Pai traveled to Silicon Valley last week to meet with big tech companies, a visit that was “extremely well received,” according to Oracle Senior Vice President Ken Glueck. (Oracle sides with the telecom industry in opposing net-neutrality rules.)
Pai attended an event held at Cisco, with attendees from
Oracle, Apple, Facebook, Salesforce and Intel, Glueck said. Pai said he met with Oracle, Cisco, Intel, Facebook and other companies.
At least one big supporter of net neutrality — Netflix — has tempered its rhetoric recently. The streaming-video company said in January that weaker net neutrality wouldn’t hurt it because it’s now too popular with users for broadband providers to interfere with its service. The company added that it still supports net neutrality “on a public policy basis.”
The tech industry is pretty good at getting consumers on its side when it decides to fight for a cause.
In 2012, Internet companies took on the entertainment industry in a fight over online piracy. Thousands of websites, including Wikipedia, one of the Internet’s most well-trafficked sites, temporarily went dark to protest legislation that would have given the government power to “blacklist” sites from the Internet.
Companies collected millions of signatures and asked users to protest to lawmakers. The bills, which aimed to curb illegal downloads and sales of movies and songs as well as other products, were dropped.
In 2014, smaller companies held an “Internet slowdown”
event to remind users of the net-neutrality fight. Sites such as Reddit, Etsy and WordPress displayed a “site loading” icon intended to signify the slowdowns users could theoretically expect without net neutrality. John Oliver, host of a cable-TV political talk show, also dedicated a show segment to the topic, which raised awareness of an otherwise jargonistic, abstract issue.
For the moment, though, there’s no net-neutrality development to rally around and won’t be until there’s an actual FCC proposal up for debate.
And no one is saying exactly what might happen once there is. “Next steps haven’t been figured out yet,” Kickstarter general counsel Michal Rosenn said in an interview two weeks ago.
“I certainly think we will try every possible avenue, including reaching back out to John Oliver,” said Engine’s executive director, Evan Engstrom.