Federal Court Kills Net Neutrality, Says FCC Lacks Authority. 383
An anonymous reader writes "According to a report from Gizmodo, a U.S. Appeals Court has invalidated the FCC's Net Neutrality rules. From the decision: 'Given that the Commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act expressly prohibits the Commission from nonetheless regulating them as such. Because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules do not impose per se common carrier obligations, we vacate those portions of the Open Internet Order.' Could this be the final nail in the coffin for Net Neutrality? Or will the FCC fight back? This submitter really, really hopes they fight back..."
Re:common carrier (Score:4, Interesting)
This always seemed like the obvious move.
Can someone explain why they didn't just do this instead? Does this classification require legislation or something?
Re:common carrier (Score:4, Interesting)
It isn't 100% clear that an ISP would have the authority to boot spammers if it was classified as a common carrier. They probably would but it isn't certain.
Re:common carrier (Score:3, Interesting)
The Obama administration doesn't compromise. They give ultimatums, and when they don't pass he circumvents the law by using executive orders.
Re: My cynical take. (Score:4, Interesting)
And my point is that your "cynical take" makes no sense. This decision is entirely based on the FCC and the courts declaring ISP information services, not common carriers, back in 2003.
What actions has Mr. Wheeler taken that are evidence of his secret loyalty to the telecom industry?
Re:common carrier (Score:4, Interesting)
It isn't 100% clear that an ISP would have the authority to boot spammers if it was classified as a common carrier. They probably would but it isn't certain.
And you know what would happen then? The spammers would be prosecuted, because customers don't like being charged for bandwidth that wasn't desired or initiated by them. The current method of spam-fighting that involves the ISP having arbitrary power to boot whatever speech from its wires that it finds 'undesirable' is HORRIBLE from a global free speech perspective. If the situation you feared came about, the instant a few people saw a few dollars on their ISP bill due to bandwidth, or a flood of spam in their inbox due to this- the spammers would be _sought out and prosecuted as they always should have been_. The current method is like making it legal (or an unenforced law) to pollute chemicals into a river, since all the downstream water treatment plants can just filter out the pollution. The right thing to do is to go after the polluters to stop polluting, and not depend on the last mile infrastructure to mitigate the consequences of the core problem. And given the free speech issues at hand, it is all the worse doing things this way on the internet.