Tech companies, states spar with US govt over net neutrality

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tech companies and nearly two dozen U.S. states clashed with the government in federal court Friday over the repeal of net neutrality, a set of Obama-era rules aimed at preventing big internet providers from discriminating against certain technology and services.

Judges challenged arguments made by both sides in the faceoff in an appeals court in Washington.

Lawyers for the states and the companies tried to persuade the three-judge panel to restore the net neutrality regime, set in 2015 during the Obama administration and repealed in December 2017 at the direction of a regulator appointed by President Donald Trump.

The companies challenging the Federal Communications Commission's "FCC" action include Mozilla, developer of the Firefox web browser, and Vimeo, a video-sharing site.

The net neutrality rules had banned cable, wireless and other broadband providers from blocking or slowing down websites and apps of their choosing, or charging Netflix and other video services extra to reach viewers faster.

The practice of slowing down transmission is known as “throttling.”

The action by the FCC rolling back the neutrality rules “is a stab in the heart of the Communications Act,” said attorney Pantelis Michalopoulos, referring to the Depression-era law that established the FCC.

The FCC wrongly classified the internet as an information service rather than a telecoms service, using that as a rationale for not cracking down on misconduct by big internet providers, Michalopoulos said, who represents Mozilla and the other companies in the case.

Government lawyers, as well as big internet providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, argued to keep net neutrality repealed.

At the hearing in the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Stephen Williams questioned Michalopoulos’s assertions on the FCC wrongly classifying the internet as an information service. Telephone services, too, offer an array of customer products, he said.

On the question of broadband providers charging premiums for faster service, Williams said a large majority of consumers prefer cheaper, lower-speed options, citing polls.

The judges are weighing whether the FCC had the authority to nix the 2015 rules and get out of the business of enforcing net neutrality. 

The judges could decide to can the repeal or send it back to the FCC for a redo if they have specific objections.

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