36 Leading Scholars to FCC: Only the Federal Communications
Commission Can Protect the Open Internet
PIJIP, Jan 29, 2015
Thirty six law professors have signed an open letter to the
Federal Communications Commission which states that the only way
to protect network neutrality is for the FCC to adopt Open
Internet rules under Title II of the Communications Act.
Stanford CIS's statement
on the release says: "The letter represents an unprecedented
display of support for a bright-line ban on fees for any kind of
preferential treatment (“paid prioritization”) by the nation's
leading academics. It explains why a ban on all forms of paid
prioritization (including zero-rating) is necessary to protect
competition, innovation and free speech online and why antitrust
enforcement alone cannot successfully address the problem, The
letter also supports repealing the provision in the FTC Act that
exempts Internet service providers from FTC oversight but explains
that any efforts to do so should not hold up the adoption of open
Internet rules next month. The letter is addressed to the Federal
Trade Commission and filed concurrently with the FCC a week before
FCC Chairman Wheeler is expected to share a draft of his network
neutrality order with the other four FCC commissioners."
WCL Professor Jonathan Baker said, “Allowing broadband providers
to charge content, applications, and services for preferential
access would hinder competition. Antitrust enforcement alone
cannot prevent these competitive harms, and the resulting problems
for innovation, investment, and free speech. We need an FCC rule.”
Baker was formerly Chief Economist at the Federal Communications
Commission and Director of the Bureau of Economics at the Federal
Trade Commission. He teaches antitrust law, communications law,
and law & economics at American University Washington College
of Law.
The
full text of the letter is available here,
through AU Program on Information Justice and Intellectual
Property's
Internet Governance Project.