Attorneys for the Federal Communications Commission and groups representing the broadband industry argued about the future of net neutrality to a panel of appeals court judges on Thursday. The hearing was part of an endless political ping-pong game over net neutrality rules — which reclassify internet service providers as common carriers, barring them from selectively throttling web traffic.
“It’s about unlocking a suite of government powers to take an industry that has historically been unregulated by the federal government ... taking it into a world of heavy-handed regulation that will extend far beyond net neutrality. It will extend to everything about the internet.” The FCC’s Jacob Lewis argued it’s obvious Congress intended to let the agency define what counts as a Title II telecommunications service, as opposed to a more loosely regulated Title I information service.