In this Client Alert, we provide a deep dive on the FCC’s recent Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order, that largely repeals the so-called “Open Internet” regulatory framework implemented by the prior FCC Chairman in 2015. Few other proceedings have drawn the amount of public interest as the adoption, subsequent revision and now repeal of the FCC’s Open Internet rules. We also provide important background on the road to where we are today, including the status of the Federal Trade Commission’s jurisdiction over broadband consumer practices involving privacy and data security, which while restored by the recent reclassification order, remains at issue in a pending en banc review in the 9th Circuit.

Background -

The FCC’s current approach to the regulatory treatment of Internet access began in 2002, when it decided to classify broadband cable modem service as a largely unregulated “information service” under Title I of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (Act). This decision was based on a view of broadband Internet access service (BIAS) as a single, functionally integrated data manipulation and processing service that merely used telecommunications incidentally to function rather than as a series of information service applications running over a separate telecommunications platform.