Will FCC Preserve or Change the Internet?
The crux of the FCC's non-transparent proposed Open Internet Order will be whether it envisions: a very limited Internet enforcement role for the FCC, or an expansive economic regulation and Internet management role for the FCC.
- The "Waxman Compromise" envisioned a very limited, two-year, enforcement-only role for the FCC that at core recognized the Constitutional authority of Congress to determine U.S. Internet policy.
- FreePress and the Open Internet coalition envision a permanent, expansive, economic-regulation, and Internet-management role for the FCC that snubs Congress' authority, policy, and consensus.
The real test of whether the FCC is limited or expansive will be whether the word "preserve" is used forthrightly in the actual text of the FCC Open Internet order: i.e. will it respect or abandon Congress' meaning of "preserve" in section 230: "to preserve the... competitive free market... Internet... unfettered by Federal or State regulation."