Victory for Freedom: FCC Cannot Regulate Internet Traffic

Apr 7, 2010 at 7:07 PM

By Preston Mui

A federal appeals court just ruled that the Federal Communications Commission does not have the power to regulate internet traffic:

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users.

I've heard it be said that the FCC needs to enforce "net neutrality" in order to maintain an open internet. But what really is the best way to maintain a free and open internet? Is it through the heavy hand of government regulation, or through the voluntary interactions of internet providers and their customers?

It's true that this ruler means that internet providers can basically do whatever they want in relation to net neutrality without legal percussions. But remember that any power and profits internet providers have is derived from its customers, the people. In this way, private companies are more accountable to us than government. If your internet provider decides to violate the concept of net neutrality, you're free to switch to another provider, and companies will provide net neutrality if the people want it.

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If your internet provider decides to violate the concept of net neutrality, you're free to switch to another provider,

How is this when in much of populated America there is one or, if you're lucky, two service providers in your area? Most companies, particularly Comcast, are monopolies in their particular area. The cost to open even a small ISP is astronomical, and that's if you can get past the local and state government regulations to lay the fiber or build the towers for wireless service.

While regulation certainly wouldn't be my first choice, a free market would still be five or ten years away, even if we removed all government regulation tomorrow. And the FCC neutrality regulations were pretty even-handed, it gave the government no control over the Internet at all, and simply required that companies didn't discriminate against certain websites or content over others.

If you think it's a victory for freedom on the Internet, let's see how much freedom we have when Comcast or AT&T decides that YouTube or even YAL is using too much bandwidth and either throttles your speeds or charges for the bandwidth you're "using" at their end - on top of YouTube or YAL's bandwidth bill to provide the content in the first place. Comcast already throttles BitTorrent, and every major ISP has said that they would love to throttle or restrict content - they just fear retribution from the government if they do so.

Submitted by Kevin Dupuy on April 8, 2010.

Kevin, I think your analysis is incorrect. I wrote an article about Net Neutrality not to long ago.

http://ucsdcalrev.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/net-neutrality-down-with-the-...

Submitted by Peter Anthony Tariche on April 8, 2010.

I also refer you to http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9775

Submitted by Peter Anthony Tariche on April 8, 2010.

We discussed this in my Media Law & Ethics class yesterday. Actually, it was a bit of a one-sided discussion, as I was the only one in class who spoke out against FCC regulation.

My only argument was that consumers have the power to switch providers--as you stated, Preston. My professor responded with something along the lines of Kevin's comment. I have just printed out the Policy Analysis from the Cato link, thank you for posting it Peter! This is a very exciting and relevant topic and I look forward to figuring out the arguments on both sides.