Free Press blasts FCC amid talk it may not push net neutrality

By Tony Romm - 05/03/10 11:41 AM ET

A top net neutrality proponent blasted the FCC on Monday for reports it would leave the future of its proposed net neutrality rules to Congress.

A day after three unnamed FCC officials told The Washington Post that Chairman Julius Genachowski would not try to mandate open Internet using his commission's rule-making process, public interest group Free Press hammered the FCC for its decision to "buckle to phone and cable industry pressure."

“We simply cannot believe that Julius Genachowski would consider going down this path. Failing to reclassify broadband means the FCC is abandoning the signature communications and technology issues of the Obama administration," said Josh Silver, the group's executive director.

"Such a decision would destroy Net Neutrality. It would deeply undermine the FCC’s ability to ensure universal Internet access for rural, low-income and disabled Americans. It will undermine the FCC’s ability to protect consumers from price-gouging and invasions of privacy," he continued.

Industry leaders once thought Genachowski, a long-time net neutrality supporter, would attempt to enforce net neutrality using his agency's rule-making process. That effort to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, over which the FCC has statutory jurisdiction, would have returned to the commission its power to regulate broadband providers after a federal court found current law stipulated otherwise.

But top telecommunication and broadband companies have long balked at such an idea, stressing the FCC had no legal authority to strip broadband of its designation as an "information service," which the commission cannot directly regulate. Verizon even threatened to challenge reclassification efforts in court.

Genachowski has not yet made official any plans to punt on reclassifying broadband. But a decision not to travel that route would leave the highly partisan matter to a divided Congress ahead of a tough midterm election cycle. Fearing that would doom the issue, Free Press' Silver on Monday implored the agency to reconsider and take stronger action.

“This decision facing the FCC chairman is about more than one single issue, or even a broken promise to the American people. If the FCC fails to stand with the public, it will be the end of the Internet as we know it,” Silver said.