• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 25, 2024

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted along party lines to reinstate net neutrality rules that prohibit carriers from blocking or throttling traffic and from charging higher fees for prioritized delivery.

The FCC's order, titled Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet, also reclassifies broadband as a utility service -- a move that paves the way for the FCC to issue sweeping new privacy rules.

The agency hasn't yet set out specific proposed privacy rules, but FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel has already indicated she wants to see the agency ban carriers from selling data that would reveal customers' locations. She also previously voted to approve regulations that would have required internet service providers to obtain subscribers' permission before harnessing data about their web activity and app usage for ad targeting. (Those rules were later repealed by Congress.)

The FCC previously passed net neutrality rules during the Obama administration, but repealed them during the Trump era.

Supporters of net neutrality, including longtime proponent Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), hailed Thursday's vote.

“Net neutrality ensures that anyone can use the internet without being blocked or obstructed by gatekeepers,” Markey said in a joint statement with Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).

“Net neutrality protects dreamers in garages, small businesses, and budding entrepreneurs from being shoved into online slow lanes,” they added.

Craig Aaron, co-CEO of advocacy group Free Press, likewise cheered the FCC's move.

“Big cable and phone companies won’t be able to pick and choose what any of us can say or see online,” he stated. “Net neutrality is a guarantee that these companies will carry our data across the internet without undue interference or unreasonable discrimination.”

Not surprisingly, cable and telecom lobbies criticized the vote.

“This is a nonissue for broadband consumers, who have enjoyed an open internet for decades. Rather than pushing this harmful regulatory land grab, policymakers should keep their eyes on the real-world prize of building opportunity for everyone in a hyperconnected world,” Jonathan Spalter, USTelecom president and CEO stated Thursday.

Michael Powell, president and CEO of the cable group NCTA--The Internet & Television Association, stated that the FCC's new rules “will risk a net fatality.”

He also made clear that the group will mount a legal challenge to the rules.

"The good news is that the FCC’s action will be overturned in court,” he stated. “Congress has always been the appropriate forum to resolve these issues.”

The NCTA and other groups previously sued to invalidate the Obama-era net neutrality rules. In 2016, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided against the broadband carrier groups and upheld the former regulations.

The libertarian think tank Tech Freedom, which also opposes the FCC's move, argues that only Congress has the authority to declare broadband service a utility.

TechFreedom president Berin Szoka pointed to the FCC's history of passing net neutrality rules only to repeal them later. Without action by Congress, “the regulatory ping-pong will go on forever,” he stated.