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Netflix, Google, Others to Sue Over Net Neutrality Repeal

A technology company trade group says it will be participating in looming lawsuits against the FCC for repealing net neutrality. In a statement, the Internet Association stated that the organization will "act as an intervenor" in the looming lawsuits against the FCC. Those lawsuits won't be filed until the repeal hits the Federal Register sometime later this month, and will focus on how the FCC ignored the public, experts, and objective data as it rushed to kill popular net neutrality rules at the behest of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

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IA members range from Amazon and Etsy, to Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Lyft and Netflix.

"The final version of Chairman Pai’s rule, as expected, dismantles popular net neutrality protections for consumers," IA President Michael Beckerman said.

"This rule defies the will of a bipartisan majority of Americans and fails to preserve a free and open internet," the group added. "IA intends to act as an intervenor in judicial action against this order and, along with our member companies, will continue our push to restore strong, enforceable net neutrality protections through a legislative solution.”

That said, some IA member companies dedication to net neutrality isn't quite what it used to be. Facebook, Google and Netflix in particular have been largely quiet during this latest assault on net neutrality.

In fact Facebook has actively worked against net neutrality in many countries like India as it looks to dominate advertising in many developing markets. Google similarly stopped fighting for net neutrality back around 2010 or so, after the company became a more entrenched player in both the fixed (Google Fiber) and wireless (Project Fi, Android) broadband marketplaces.

And Netflix, at one point the most vocal major opponent of net neutrality, has walked back its rhetoric in recent years as the company has grown more successful. At a conference last year in California, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said while net neutrality is "incredibly important,” it's no longer "narrowly important to us because we’re big enough to get the deals we want."

"I think Trump’s FCC is going to unwind the rules no matter what anybody says,” Hastings said. "We had to carry the water when we were growing up and we were small," Hastings said, "and now other companies need to be on that leading edge," stating also that "where net neutrality is really important is the Netflix of 10 years ago."

Still, their financing of the IA means they're at least helping fund defense of the rules somewhat from the frontal assault by Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and their new BFFs at the Federal Communications Commission. Expect the rules to hit the Federal Register within the next month or two, and a flurry of lawsuits to arrive shortly thereafter.

Most recommended from 34 comments



Packeteers
Premium Member
join:2005-06-18
Forest Hills, NY
Asus RT-AC3100
(Software) Asuswrt-Merlin

18 recommendations

Packeteers

Premium Member

too little too late

where were all these consumer suckups 6 months ago

bottom line is until the house & senate goes blue again,
all washington knows how to do right now is deregulate,
they are incapable of writing any new logical fair laws,
without legal vagaries, legal loopholes or by state pork.

SmD Frylock
join:2001-08-09
Farrell, PA

7 recommendations

SmD Frylock

Member

Legislation needs to be in both directions.

The problem either way is this needs to be resolved by legislation drafted by congress, and it needs to be drafted in a way that enforces Net Neutrality on both the ISP and Content providers.

I started thinking about what Pai was trying to do outside of the "Paid Verizon Shill" argument and realized that the end the FCC only could enforce Net neutrality on one side of the data; The ISP side. They could do nothing if a content provider decided to throttle an ISP's customers (Similar to a Carriage Dispute) in order to extort money from the ISP.

Basically it comes down to this:

If Comcast throttled Netflix to try to get Netflix to pay them for priority bandwidth, FCC could step in with Title II and regulate.
If Netflix throttled Comcast to try to get Comcast to pay them for priority bandwidth, FCC couldn't do a thing because Netflix is outside of FCC control.

By moving net neutrality enforcement to the FTC, Which has (albeit limited) regulation authority over both the ISP and the Content Provider, Net neutrality could (theoretically) be enforced better in both directions instead of just one like it currently is. Regardless however it's not the best solution, and that's where legislation comes in.

Anon29f8b
@verizon.net

5 recommendations

Anon29f8b

Anon

Dear Netflix,

Sorry, Reed, but you're not too big to fail. You really think Comcast, Verizon, et al wouldn't be able to find it in their best interests to "hinder" your subscribers (and theirs) from getting the services that they're paying for? My... aren't you optimistic.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

2 recommendations

battleop

Member

Pot, Kettle, Black.

So the companies that are stopping each other's customer/users from accessing each other's contents over hardware sales are bitching about the NN Repeal?

I'm sure that none of these companies are doing this for their own profits, they are just doing it as their civic duty, right?