FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who appears to have set a goal of sending the US internet into the dark ages, is digging up an old rule which stopped telcos from killing off BitTorrent.
Pai thinks it was a mistake for the FCC to try and stop Comcast from blocking BitTorrent in 2008, and thinks all of the regulatory actions the FCC took after that to give itself the authority to prevent blocking were wrong.
To do that he wants to turn back the clock to the legal framework that allowed Comcast to block BitTorrent.
For those who are too young to remember, the 2008 Comcast-BitTorrent Order allowed the Commission to directly enforce federal internet policy when the telcos significantly impeded consumers? ability to access the content and use the applications of their choice.
The FCC couldn?t stop Comcast from blocking BitTorrent in 2008, it changed the rules so it would have that power, and Pai wants to undo that change and give Comcast the power to block internet services like BitTorrent once again.
Pai claims that the FCC did not need those sorts of powers and Comcast blocking BitTorrent could have been challenged under antitrust and consumer protection laws on a case-by-case basis. However, there is a small problem here about who would actually make the complaint. Taking on Comcast is an expensive option and out of the pockets of most people.
To make matters worse, even if it did win, the precedents don?t have much weight. It will not take long for the general public and consumer rights groups to realise that taking on the telcos is too rich for their legal budgets. This is exactly the sort of thing that a government regulator should be doing.
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