It was completely hopeless.
That's what Marvin Ammori, a net-neutrality advocate and consultant for tech companies, told Ari Shahdadi, the general counsel of Tumblr, over burgers in New York City in January 2014.
A federal court had just sided with Verizon and struck down the government's net-neutrality regulations, potentially giving Internet providers the green light to block websites or carve up the Internet into "fast lanes" and "slow lanes."
Ammori and Shahdadi feared the future of the Internet as an open and free platform could be in danger. But the only way to restore net neutrality would be for the Federal Communications Commission to do the politically unthinkable, what some called the "nuclear option."
They would have to convince the FCC to declare the Internet a "telecommunications service" under Title II of the Communications Act. That move, they believed, was the only way the FCC could enact real net-neutrality protections that could hold up in court. But it would provoke the full wrath of some of the most powerful companies in Washington. Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable would all argue it would strangle their industry with outdated utility-style government controls.
How could a handful of start-ups and some feisty Internet activists beat multibillion-dollar corporations with hundreds of well-connected lobbyists?
Shahdadi managed to talk Ammori back from the ledge. A few years earlier, Shahdadi reminded him, they had helped organize a huge online uproar over the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Thousands of websites shut down in protest over the anti-piracy measure. Despite the vocal support of Hollywood and the music industry, lawmakers were forced to drop the legislation in the face of the massive public backlash.... KEEP READING
◼ On the other hand: FCC Commissioner Slams ‘Obama’s 332-Page Plan To Regulate The Internet’ - Daily Caller
Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on Friday raised the first of many criticisms to come about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aggressive net neutrality plan distributed to commissioners Thursday, which Pai described as “President Obama’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet.”
In a statement released Friday, Pai lamented the fact that the 332-page plan, which he tweeted a picture of himself holding next to a picture of Obama, won’t be released to the public until after the commission votes on its implementation later this month....
“President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works,” Pai said. “The plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband… These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay.”
And then he came for the Internet, made it over in his image... 332-pages of new rules... http://t.co/EQ9d1BM7Mh pic.twitter.com/7dv5N1GYrB
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) February 10, 2015
