Supreme Court declines to hear net neutrality case News
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Supreme Court declines to hear net neutrality case

The Supreme Court declined Monday to review a 2016 case brought by various broadband service providers challenging Federal Communications Commission (FCC) net neutrality protections from the Obama era.

The present case comes from the FCC of the Obama Administration issued the 2015 Open Internet Order, which reclassified broadband providers to be “common carriers” obligated to provide indiscriminate service to their customers. The language is taken from similar regulations preventing transportation services like railroads and airlines from discriminating against their clients. The FCC provisions were designed to protect net neutrality by ensuring access to the any legal content on the internet would have to be provided on an equal basis. This would effectively prevent internet service providers like AT&T and Verizon from throttling internet for users streaming too much Netflix.

In the same year, various telecommunications companies as well as independent providers brought this suit against the FCC arguing that they operated more similarly to broadcast networks and should be allowed editorial discretion over the content they provide. This would allow them to throttle or restrict entirely access for their customers to content the providers found objectionable, but could also be used. The case was heard by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in 2016, but they ultimately found the arguments unpersuasive and left the current FCC rules in place.

In December 2017, the FCC voted to repeal these rules under the leadership of FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, and issued the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. Telecommunications companies however were not satisfied and were concerned that the 2016 DC Circuit ruling could be used as precedent against them. These companies appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which denied certiorari Monday.

The court was divided on these appeals with Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch arguing to grant certiorari and vacate the decision of the DC Circuit as it had been made moot by the FCC repeal. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh took no part in the proceedings, but the majority ultimately voted to deny certioari.