Tech giants will fight FCC on net neutrality
Major Silicon Valley companies are joining a legal fight to restore net neutrality.
The Internet Association, a Washington trade group representing prominent tech companies including Facebook, Google and Netflix, announced plans Friday to help sue the federal government over its decision to rescind Obama-era regulations that guaranteed equal access to the Internet.
This legal action comes nearly a month after the Federal Communications Commission’s 3-2 vote on Dec. 14 to overturn the regulations under FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The decision struck a particular chord in the Bay Area, where companies and politicians say the regulations helped preserve the freedom to tinker that spurs innovation in Silicon Valley.
The association is not expected to file its own lawsuit, but rather intervene in a suit that will be filed by other entities such as Etsy, the online crafts marketplace. The announcement followed the FCC’s release of its rewritten rules Thursday night.
“The final version of Chairman Pai’s rule, as expected, dismantles popular net neutrality protections for consumers,” the Internet Association said. “This rule defies the will of a bipartisan majority of Americans and fails to preserve a free and open Internet.”
Net neutrality ensures that Internet companies cannot favor certain content over others. While advocates say the regulations helped foster the growth of startups, major Internet providers like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T hailed the decision as one that removes a layer of unnecessary regulation.
The FCC declined to comment.
Pai has received sharp criticism since the vote, but defended his position by saying the rules were a heavy-handed approach to government regulation. Pai canceled a planned appearance at the CES technology conference in Las Vegas next week because of death threats, technology website Recode reported Friday. It is unclear whether the threats were connected to Pai’s net neutrality decision, which has drawn rancor on social media.
This week, state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced a bill that requires telecommunications companies doing business in the state to guarantee equal Internet access. State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De León, DLos Angeles, is backing a similar bill. Efforts are also under way in New York and Washington state to write their own rules guaranteeing equal Internet access to consumers.
Salar Atrizadeh, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in Internet policy issues including net neutrality, said it is premature to determine how the legal efforts to restore net neutrality will fare.
But, he said, it will all come down to money.
“It’s a new argument that’s never happened before, and the FCC has acted in a very cavalier manner,” he said. “They are going against the big dogs ... and it is a matter of dollars and cents, and who has the most evidence.”
Noah Theran, an Internet Association spokesman, said open Internet rules helped level the playing field among companies, both small and large, in terms of their ability to reach people.
“The best websites and apps should win in a competitive marketplace because consumers like and use them, not because an ISP is picking winners and losers online by speeding up, blocking, or throttling access to certain sites,” Theran said in an email.
AT&T Senior Executive Vice President Bob Quinn said in a blog post after the December vote that “the Internet will continue to work tomorrow just as it always has.” He added that the company won’t block, censor or slow traffic to websites “based on content, nor unfairly discriminate in our treatment of Internet traffic.”
Verizon said it “fully supports the open Internet, and we will continue to do so. Our customers demand it and our business depends on it.”
But Internet streaming giant Netflix sharply criticized the December vote. “Today’s decision is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix will stand with innovators, large and small, to oppose this misguided FCC order,” the Los Gatos company said in a statement.
Netflix, Facebook and Google did not respond to requests for comment Friday afternoon.
Emmett Shear, CEO of the popular San Francisco video game streaming company Twitch, now owned by Amazon.com, said startups like his were able to succeed because of net neutrality.
“Without it, we might not be here today, and our streamers might not be here tomorrow,” Shear said in a blog post written in anticipation of the FCC’s reversal.