The Federal Communications Commission has hit a stumbling block in its efforts to enforce net neutrality on internet providers. Why? According to Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, there’s no law to cite. Congress hasn’t passed a law that would empower the FCC to regulate how internet providers, such as Comcast, deliver their services. Internet providers have long fought any such regulation which would hamper their ability to artificially create scarcity by denying certain services to subscribers. Two years ago, Comcast and BitTorrent got into a tiff over large bandwidth access, probably spurred on by the Motion Picture Association of America’s complaints about illegal downloads. All of these companies are looking out for themselves, as they should. Perhaps someone should be looking out for the consumer. Anyone? Bueller?
Net neutrality is a principle advocating equal access to the internet without restriction for anyone regardless of what they are using to connect to the internet.