Bans on throttling, blocking, and paid prioritization aren't the only things going the way of the dodo when the Trump administration takes the axe to popular net neutrality rules next week. As Ars Technica notes, the rules also required that ISPs be more transparent about the universe of misleading fees, usage surcharges, and other bill add ons that have plagued consumers for years. From CenturyLink's bogus "Internet Cost Recovery fee" to the rise in broadcast TV fees, usuing nonsensical charges to jack up the advertised rate has become a popular industry pastime.
There's technically
two sets of transparency requirements that will be killed with the FCC votes to kill the rules next week.
One set of transparency requirements were created in 2010 with the first net neutrality rules, and an expanded version of transparency requirements were added to the 2015 version. ISPs unsuccessfully sued to eliminate the requirements in both instances, with the 2010 version being the only thing that survived that court battle. As Ars notes, these are the things ISPs need to currently reveal they will no longer be obligated to after the repeal:
• Price: the full monthly service charge. Any promotional rates should be clearly noted as such, specify the duration of the promotional period and the full monthly service charge the consumer will incur after the expiration of the promotional period.
• Other Fees: all additional one time and/or recurring fees and/or surcharges the consumer may incur either to initiate, maintain, or discontinue service, including the name, definition, and cost of each additional fee. These may include modem rental fees, installation fees, service charges, and early termination fees, among others.
• Data Caps and Allowances: any data caps or allowances that are a part of the plan the consumer is purchasing, as well as the consequences of exceeding the cap or allowance (e.g., additional charges, loss of service for the remainder of the billing cycle).
Even with these rules, ISPs often tap danced over, under and around good taste on this front, thanks in large part to regulators from both parties that have consistently, historically, failed to crack down on this behavior. That said, the government's plan to largely gut all meaningful oversight of ISPs is likely to make the problem much worse.
FCC boss Ajit Pai has justified the removal of these requirements by insisting they're "too onerous" for ISPs to adhere to.
"[W]e retain the transparency rule as established in the [2010] Open Internet Order, with some modifications, and eliminate the additional reporting obligations of the [2015] Title II Order," Pai's neutrality repeal proclaims. "We find many of those additional reporting obligations significantly increased the burdens imposed on ISPs without providing countervailing benefits to consumers or the Commission."
Moving forward post repeal, large ISPs will be able to engage in throttling, blocking, paid prioritization deals, hamstringing of interconnection points, and the use of various, often misleading fees
without having to disclose them at the point of sale. ISPs will still need to document
some of these behaviors somewhere via fine print on their website and to the FCC, but given this FCC and the industry's
track record -- making those disclosures easily-accessible -- or cracking down on ISPs when they don't -- isn't likely to be a top priority.