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from the its-not-over-until-the-fat-lady-sings dept.
From Reuters:
A group of 22 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia late Monday asked a U.S. appeals court to reinstate the Obama administration's 2015 landmark net neutrality rules and reject the Trump administration's efforts to preempt states from imposing their own rules guaranteeing an open internet.
The states, led by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, filed a lawsuit in January after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted in December along party lines to reverse rules that barred internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic or offering paid fast lanes, also known as paid prioritization.
Several internet companies filed a separate legal challenge on Monday to overturn the FCC ruling, including Mozilla Corp, Vimeo Inc, Etsy Inc, and numerous media and technology advocacy groups.
The FCC handed sweeping new powers to internet providers to recast how Americans use the internet — as long as they disclose any changes. The new rules took effect in early June but major providers have made no changes in internet access.
[...] The U.S. Senate voted in May to keep the Obama-era internet rules, but the measure is unlikely to be approved by the House of Representatives or the White House.
The state attorney generals suing represent states with 165 million people — more than half the United States population — and include California, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:38PM (2 children)
Some states are, the problem is that the laws aren't necessarily identical. Here in WA State the GOP and Democrats were able to get together and agree that the rules should largely be what they were previously. Both parties submitted similar proposals for fixing the problem and so we've had it back to normal months ago.
There is the question though about what happens outside of the state. In the state, the ISPs are not able to engage in any of these shenanigans, however, if the other end of the pipe goes through an ISP that isn't bound by our rules, there's no guarantee that they will comply. Especially if it's an ISP that has no presence here.
There's also the risk of having many different specific implementations that confuse customers when they move out of state.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:22PM
This is an advantage, not a problem.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday August 22 2018, @01:00PM
There's also the fact -- which is part of this lawsuit and mentioned right at the top of TFS -- that the FCC has already stated that such laws are also illegal. Either the FCC is overstepping their authority and trying to coerce states into obeying rules that they have no right to make in the first place, OR that state law is going to be null and void the minute some ISP decides to challenge it in court. So that's not really a solution; at best it's a temporary stopgap measure while lawsuits like the one mentioned in TFA proceed. Those laws are entirely relying on the fact that they're unlikely to get totally stricken by a judge as long as the issue is still an open question at the federal level. But if the main federal issue gets decided the wrong way, those state laws will be meaningless.