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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

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 authority FCC does not to regulate parties other than the connectivity providers. For example, they can forbid Google from using their market position in other areas to gain a competitive advantage with their own connectivity services. They can keep a close eye on Netflix's attempts to compete with or blackmail providers over CDNs. That might be real network neutrality, not the one-sided vision heavily promoted by content providers.

TehCorwiz 9y ago
Can 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.
shmerl 9y ago
The problem with FTC is that they have an awful track record of handling such issues. FCC's NN rules while being incomplete actually managed to fix real abuse such as interconnection slowdown by Verizon and others. Pushing it to FTC would simply let this whole thing rot away, while following a formality. The problem of course is simply the fact that whole anti-trust regulation in US is messed up.
mc32 9y ago
If true this might inform big tech's position with respect to net neutrality. It seemed a bit off that the FBs, Googs, and other big user facing tech cos would want the FCC and not the FTC in charge.
- shmerl 9y ago
  I think the reason is dysfunction of FTC. They claim they handle such cases on individual basis instead of establishing clear rules. It doesn't sound like an efficient approach to me.

TehCorwiz 9y ago

Can 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.

shmerl 9y ago

The problem with FTC is that they have an awful track record of handling such issues. FCC's NN rules while being incomplete actually managed to fix real abuse such as interconnection slowdown by Verizon and others. Pushing it to FTC would simply let this whole thing rot away, while following a formality. The problem of course is simply the fact that whole anti-trust regulation in US is messed up.

mc32 9y ago

If true this might inform big tech's position with respect to net neutrality. It seemed a bit off that the FBs, Googs, and other big user facing tech cos would want the FCC and not the FTC in charge.

shmerl 9y ago
I think the reason is dysfunction of FTC. They claim they handle such cases on individual basis instead of establishing clear rules. It doesn't sound like an efficient approach to me.