Appeals court strikes down FCC net neutrality rules, citing Supreme Court decision

US Federal Court of Appeals on Thursday hit down Net neutrality regulations that pit telecom companies and internet service providers against the FCC.

This ruling comes after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted in favor last year Restore regulations This requires ISPs, including companies like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, to treat Internet traffic equally.

Net neutrality advocates have argued that regulations Protected consumers From charging premium rates for access to certain types of data, such as streaming video, or from reducing their speeds when accessing content from companies competing with ISPs.

Critics of the regulations argued that they removed the ability of Internet service providers to manage Internet traffic and make key business decisions about their data infrastructure without government intervention.

FCC first foot Net neutrality regulations during the administration of former Democratic President Barack Obama. She was Take it apart During the first administration of Republican Donald Trump, it was then given new life under the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden.

Many industry observers expected them to be so I blinked again With President-elect Trump last November selecting Brendan Carr to serve as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the upcoming second Trump administration. But the decision was made by all Republicans plate In the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, net neutrality was killed at the federal level even before Carr took over the agency.

In response to the decision, outgoing FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a… statement That US citizens want a “fast, open, and fair Internet.”

“It is clear that Congress now needs to heed their call, take responsibility for net neutrality and put open internet principles into federal law,” Rosenworcel said.

In his country statementCarr said the internet would not break with a lack of net neutrality rules and that the Biden administration’s efforts to impose utility-like regulations on the internet were over-regulating rather than allowing “America’s internet to flourish.”

In the decision, Judge Richard Allen Griffin described the FCC’s treatment of Internet companies as inconsistent and that the revived net neutrality rules are part of the FCC’s “strict regulatory regime.”

The court’s ruling cites the Supreme Court’s Loper-Bright decision last June, which invalidated a 1984 precedent that gave federal agencies deference to interpreting laws in the areas they oversee.

The ruling does not affect state laws related to net neutrality in California, Colorado and Washington, according to the New York Times male.