The FCC Takes Its Hands Off The Internet

IN APRIL, AJIT Pai, the newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), announced his first major initiative: taking internet regulation back to 2014.

- Peter Suderman

Two years earlier, the FCC had reclassified how the web is treated under the Telecommunications Act. Before, it had been a Title I information service, which is lightly regulated. Now it was a Title II telecommunications service, essentially a utility, like the landline phone system.

President Barack Obama had pushed aggressively for the change—part of a policy known as “net neutrality”—raising questions about the agency’s independence from the executive branch. The new rules were put in place under a cloud of secrecy, with the specifics hidden from public view until after they were voted into effect.

Previous iterations of the FCC’s net neutrality rules had been struck down by the courts, which said the agency did not have sufficient authority to mandate that internet service providers (ISPs) treat all online content equally. Reclassifying the web under Title II gave the commission the regulatory muscle to make net neutrality a requirement.