High court passes on net ruling

The Supreme Court said Monday that it will not hear a closely watched case over the future of the internet — rejecting a petition by telecom industry groups to consider net neutrality, or the principle that internet providers should treat all online content equally.

Three of the court’s justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, would have voted to take up the case, according to the court’s announcement, and overturn a lower court’s decision backing the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules, which were originally passed in 2015. But there were not enough justices for a majority, after Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh recused themselves. Roberts’ financial disclosures for last year showed that he owned stock in Time Warner, a company that is now owned by AT&T under the name Warner Media, while Kavanaugh took part in the case as a judge in the lower court.

As a result, the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stands. That opinion, in 2016, held that the Federal Communications Commission had acted within its powers when it approved sweeping new rules the year before that imposed new obligations on internet providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon.

The FCC rules forbade carriers from blocking or slowing down websites, and also prohibited them from offering websites faster delivery to consumers in exchange for new, additional fees. Providers complained that the rules were overly burdensome and a violation of the FCC’s congressionally granted powers; consumer advocates said the rules were necessary as a vital consumer protection. The D.C. Circuit upheld the regulations.

The GOP-led effort to repeal the FCC’s net neutrality rules set off a separate round of litigation, as tech companies and consumer groups sued to block the deregulation. That suit, which is also pending before the D.C. Circuit, is quickly becoming the center of the legal battle over net neutrality now.