Current FCC plans run afoul of anti-trust law since they would allow monopolistic ISPs who own the physical network and services like video, to harm competitors (which provide over the top services that have to go through the above physical network) by using data caps, interconnection blocking and other anti-competitive approaches. How is that not a serious legal argument?
One answer might be that it's a serious legal argument not under the FCC's purview . FCC has an interest in keeping communications media from discriminating, but anti-competitive behavior and many other aspects of what we think of as net neutrality fall under FTC instead. It was always a bit of a stretch for FCC to be taking the lead on this. It might even be better to let FTC lead on this, because they have authorit…
Re: FCC ignored your net neutrality comment unless you made ‘serious’ legal argument
#21Can you show an instance where the FTC has actually
done this in practice? Currently, Joseph Simons, a long-time corporate anti-trust lawyer heads the FTC. We can expect a light touch from them for the time being. Removing a protection that has been respected either formally or informally since the inception or Arpanet would radically change the face of the internet regardless of how you slice it. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Preventing misbehavior by regulating the industry saves both time and energy on the parts of consumers as well as corporations.