USA - Ex-Obama advisor calls on FCC to reclassify internet for the sake of Net Neutrality

[examiner] Michigan professor and former Obama advisor Susan Crawford remarked in Sunday’s New York Times: “The [FCC] should state its case, relabel high-speed Internet access as a ‘telecommunications service,’ and take back the power to protect American consumers.” If the FCC is able to accomplish such a reclassification the government agency would gain complete control over the service. In her opinion column entitled: “An Internet for Everybody” Crawford then summarizes the dialectical legal journey the internet has taken since its mainstream acceptance.

Initially classified as a “telecommunications service” in the era of dial-up, the FCC possessed authority to regulate the Internet as decreed by several provisions, or “titles”, in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. According to Crawford this regulation “allowed innumerable online businesses –Ebay, Google, Amazon, your local knitter – to start up without asking permission from the phone and cable companies.”

Ex-Obama advisor calls on FCC to reclassify internet for the sake of Net Neutrality