The Republican Push To Repeal Net Neutrality Will Get Underway This Week (washingtonpost.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Post: Federal regulators will move to roll back one of the Obama administration's signature Internet policies this week, launching a process to repeal the government's net neutrality rules that currently regulate how Internet providers may treat websites and their own customers. The vote on Thursday, led by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, will kick off consideration of a proposal to relax regulations on companies such as Comcast and AT&T. If approved by the 2-1 Republican-majority commission, it will be a significant step for the broadband industry as it seeks more leeway under government rules to develop new business models. For consumer advocates and tech companies, it will be a setback; those groups argue that looser regulations won't prevent those business models from harming Internet users and website owners. The current rules force Internet providers to behave much like their cousins in the legacy telephone business. Under the FCC's net neutrality policy, providers cannot block or slow down consumers' Internet traffic, or charge websites a fee in order to be displayed on consumers' screens. The net neutrality rules also empower the FCC to investigate ISP practices that risk harming competition. Internet providers have chafed at the stricter rules governing phone service, which they say were written for a bygone era. Pai's effort to roll back the rules has led to a highly politicized debate. Underlying it is a complex policy decision with major implications for the future of the Web.

Comments

Re:How is this a partisan thing?

[rogoshen1]

Because here in the US, and most common among right leaning folks, we have a very unique mental ... 'condition' about the government doing anything other than shows of military force.

These rubes are told: "government is interfering with business", and the knee-jerk reaction is "regulation bad, free enterprise good". And that's how republican voters are conned into voting/supporting things that are absolutely counter their interests.

Basically, you have the FCC/government interfering with free enterprise, which goes against our notion of rustic self reliance. Notice, this only gets trotted out when the government is trying to regulate business, especially if it's in the public interest. Handouts are of course distinct, and definitely a different beast!

Re:Good

[spun]

Technically true, Obama appointed him to the committee, but he was just one of five members, not the chairman of the FCC. Only three members of the committee can be members of the party currently in power, the other two must come from the other side. So Obama had to pick a republican.

Tom Wheeler was chairman of the FCC during Obama's second term. Pai did not take over automatically, the chairman is appointed by the president. Because this issue is essentially one group of powerful corporations fighting a second group of powerful corporations, it tends not to be a partisan issue so much as a "who gave which politician the most money recently" issue.