Cynicism over AT&T Web proposal
AT&T asked Congress for an “Internet Bill of Rights” to set boundaries for companies’ online behavior in order to protect consumers. Supporters of net neutrality rules, which were eliminated in December, dismissed the call as a ploy to ward off regulation.
The third-largest broadband provider in the U.S. said Congress needs to act now that the Federal Communications Commission has gutted its own rules — a move favored by AT&T and other phone companies. In a letter to legislators placed in major newspapers starting Wednesday, CEO Randall Stephenson said Congress should write “new laws that govern the Internet and protect consumers,” with rules that apply to network operators as well as websites, like Facebook and Google.
Internet service providers have called for Congress to step in and create permanent rules for handling Web traffic. But lawmakers appear polarized, with congressional Democrats focused on attempts to override the FCC’s action and suspicious that Republican legislative proposals would sap regulators’ powers to police future abuses.
AT&T’s proposal is “the ultimate in hypocrisy,” said Gigi Sohn, who helped write the now-defunct net neutrality rule while an FCC aide.
“Any ‘Internet Bill of Rights’ supported by AT&T will leave the FCC powerless, net neutrality and privacy protections weak and consumers and competition left out in the cold,” Sohn, a fellow at the Open Society Foundations, said in an email.
Broadband providers such as AT&T have planned “to gut the rules at the FCC and then use the ‘crisis’ they created to ram through bad legislation in the name of ‘saving’ net neutrality,” Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future policy group, said in an email.
AT&T has been active in Washington, cheering on the Republicans’ tax bill last month while fighting an antitrust lawsuit by the Department of Justice blocking its $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner. In his letter, Stephenson pledged that AT&T won’t block websites, censor content, throttle or lower network quality based on content, regardless of whether Congress acts.