The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit just released an opinion rejecting a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 decision to impose network neutrality rules, which seek to prevent internet service providers from blocking or favoring websites. In short, the background of the case is this:
The Commission … promulgated the order at issue in this case—the 2015 Open Internet Order—in which it reclassified broadband service as a telecommunications service, subject to common carrier regulation under Title II of the Communications Act. The Commission also exercised its statutory authority to forbear from applying many of Title II’s provisions to broadband service and promulgated five rules to promote internet openness. Three separate groups of petitioners, consisting primarily of broadband providers and their associations, challenge the Order, arguing that the Commission lacks statutory authority to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, that even if the Commission has such authority its decision was arbitrary and capricious, that the Commission impermissibly classified mobile broadband as a commercial mobile service, that the Commission impermissibly forbore from certain provisions of Title II, and that some of the rules violate the First
Amendment.
The court upheld the FCC's action in full. The opinion is here.
