The FCC’s New Net Neutrality Proposal Is Even Worse Than You Think

By Marvin Ammori

In 2008 and 2012, President Obama campaigned on the incredibly popular idea of network neutrality—a law that would forbid phone and cable companies from changing the Internet and charging websites new tolls, and different tolls for new fast lanes and slow lanes on the internet. Yet yesterday, the New York Times reported that the man Obama appointed as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler, has made a complete turnaround on network neutrality. He is now proposing rules that authorize massive discrimination by cable and phone companies, legalizing new tolls on tech companies, and pretty much putting our entire Internet economy under the control of a few politically connected, powerful phone and cable companies.

Understandably, the Internet exploded.

You don’t know the half of it. It’s even worse than you realize. The rules on paper are bad, and their enforcement will be even worse. That’s because you would need a small army of telecommunications lawyers and economists to bring a case under the new rules.