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The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a new, third way approach to net neutrality after struggling between the options of indirect, piecemeal authority and direct, complete authority over broadband services. The announcement of the new approach follows the controversial Comcast v. FCC decision last month. The case involved Comcast interfering with BitTorrent, a file-sharing web service, and the FCC attempted to intervene in the name of net neutrality. Net neutrality is a concept that means companies should not be able to obstruct or discriminate against any type of data flow over the internet, enabling independent web-services to effectively compete against big companies. After a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Comcast, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that his agency was created by the government in order to make services such as the internet as widely available and efficient as possible, and that its abilities to do so have been hampered by the Comcast ruling. While internet service providers such as Comcast and Verizon say they have the right to manage their internet traffic as they please, internet companies such as Amazon, Google, and Netflix have applauded the government’s middle ground approach to regulation. Congressional support will be needed to implement this approach, and legislators are currently split down party lines. Some industry sources have predicted that it may take years for the legal disputes surrounding this controversy to subside.

GUEST: Chris Riley, Policy Counsel for Free Press

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