FCC Plans to Roll Back Internet Rules

Ajit Pai

The FCC unveiled a plan Tuesday that would give Internet providers broad powers to determine what websites and online services their customers can see and use.

According To The Washington Post, the move sets the stage for a crucial vote next month that could reshape the entire digital ecosystem. The agency’s Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, has made undoing the government's net neutrality rules one of his top priorities, and Tuesday's move hands a win to broadband companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

Pai is taking aim at regulations that were approved just two years ago under a Democratic presidency and that sought to make sure all Internet content, whether from big or small companies, would be treated equally by Internet providers.

The decision will be put to a vote at the agency's Dec. 14 meeting in Washington. It is expected to pass, with the GOP controlling three of the commission's five seats.

In a release, Pai said his proposal would prevent the government from "micromanaging the Internet." In place of the existing rules, he added, the FCC would "simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices."

“The FCC will no longer be in the business of micromanaging business models and preemptively prohibiting services and applications and products that could be pro-competitive,” Pai said in an interview, adding that the Obama administration had sought to pick winners and losers and exercised “heavy-handed” regulation of the internet.

The Wall Street Journal reports oversight responsibility for internet providers would again include the Federal Trade Commission as well as the FCC, Mr. Pai said in his statement. The Obama-era rules effectively exempted internet providers from FTC regulation.

“As a result of my proposal, the Federal Trade Commission will once again be able to police [internet providers], protect consumers and promote competition, just as it did before 2015,” Mr. Pai wrote. “Notably, my proposal will put the federal government’s most experienced privacy cop, the FTC, back on the beat to protect consumers’ online privacy.”

The FCC would retain a version of its transparency rule, requiring providers to disclose their net-neutrality practices to consumers.

Many conservatives view the FTC’s case-by-case regulatory approach as more appropriate for the internet economy, to encourage more innovation.

Progressives prefer the FCC’s rule-based approach for the online environment to prevent unfair and anticompetitive practices by internet providers from ever taking root.