Nerds Biting Back
The net neutrality debate is shifting fast. Late Friday, Mike Masnick of TechDirt wrote that it was significant that the FCC Chair Tom Wheeler, in a written reply to leaders of last week’s tech industry letter to the agency, was now saying that this week’s vote of the commission will include a request for public comment on whether the Title II of the Telecommunications Act should be invoked to reclassify broadband service.
According to Gautham Nagesh’s story in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal, Wheeler is revising his planned rulemaking draft with more language promising to prevent broadband providers from slowing down their services to customers, while still allowing paid prioritization deals.
Also in the Journal, Tim Wu and Berin Szoka debate whether there’s real competition in the broadband marketplace.
Refresher course: Stanford Law professor Barbara Van Schewick’s Atlantic essay on “The case for rebooting the network neutrality debate.” By the way, she notes,