Congressional Research Service

Short, but functional, thorough, and even-handed overview of a controversial topic with a convoluted legal and regulatory history. In a nutshell, is broadband Internet service an "information service" (Title I of the Telecommunications Act of 1934) with little regulation, or a common carrier under Title II? It's vacillated between the two. Although net neutrality has been a *policy* of the FCC since 2005, it wasn't officially the rule until 2010, which was overturned by Verizon v. FCC. The new net neutrality rule was reinstated in 2015 by an FCC Order that was then replaced by a new Order in 2018, which returned the Internet to the status of an unregulated information service. Whew! But don't be surprised if that later changes, either by Congress invoking the Congressional Review Act to overturn an administrative regulation, or by a new board of FCC commissioners from a Democratic administration.… (mehr)