Mozilla Wins Court Case on Net Neutrality

Mozilla has achieved a significant victory in the Federal Appeals Court, resulting in a substantial weakening of the rules regarding net neutrality established by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The court ruled that individual states have the right to set their own net neutrality regulations at the local legislative level. For example, similar legislative changes to preserve net neutrality are expected to be adopted in California.

However, while the repeal of net neutrality remains in effect (unless states individually pass laws to change these rules at their level), the judge described the logic behind the repeal as “divorced from the reality of building modern broadband services.” The FCC still has the option to appeal the decision to higher courts, including the Supreme Court.

To recap, last year the FCC repealed requirements that prohibited internet providers from charging for prioritized access, blocking content, or throttling the speed of access to legally distributed content and services. Net neutrality was previously ensured under the “Title II” classification, which treated broadband access as an “information service” rather than a “telecommunications service.” This placed content distributors and network operators on equal footing and prevented discrimination against either party.

Mozilla believes that violating the equal treatment of all types of traffic and allowing discrimination against content distributors by giving network operators the ability to prioritize different types and sources of traffic is unacceptable. According to net neutrality advocates, such prioritization would degrade access quality to some websites and data types in favor of others, and make it harder for new services to enter the market, as they would initially be at a disadvantage compared to services that pay providers for higher traffic priority.