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Federal Government Suing California Over Newly Signed Net Neutrality Law

Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a net neutrality bill, prompting the Trump administration to respond with an immediate lawsuit.


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Net neutrality is an Obama-era policy that required internet service providers to treat all internet traffic as equal.

The net neutrality bill not only prohibits internet service providers from slowing or blocking access to websites, or charging companies extra to deliver their service faster, but also outlaws “zero-rating offers,” which allow carriers to exempt certain services from counting against a user’s data cap.

See Related: No More ‘Open Internet’: Net Neutrality Ends

The law also applies to “interconnection” deals between network operators, which occurs when two network operators “hand off” network traffic to one another.

For example, video-streaming companies such as Netflix deliver streams directly to broadband providers, such as Verizon or Comcast. These providers control the internet connection into people’s homes. Companies negotiate private contracts over those handoffs.

The new law would ban any blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization when traffic is being handed off in these interconnection deals.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the lawsuit almost immediately after it was announced that Brown had signed the bill.

“Once again the California Legislature has enacted an extreme and illegal state law attempting to frustrate federal policy,” said U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a statement.

The Department of Justice argues that the bill creates burdensome, anti-consumer requirements that go against the federal government’s approach of deregulating the internet.

Supporters of the new law cheered it as a victory for internet freedom.

“This is a historic day for California,” said Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener, the law’s author. “A free and open internet is a cornerstone of 21st-century life: our democracy, our economy, our healthcare and public safety systems, and day-to-day activities.”

Senator Henry Stern, D-Canoga Park; Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale; and Assemblyman Dante Acosta, R-Santa Clarita, voted in favor of the bill when it was proposed in the California Legislature at the beginning of September. Senator Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, voted against it.

The newly signed law is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2019.

Ed. Note: Some of the above information was provided by CNN. KHTS is an affiliate of CNN.

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Federal Government Suing California Over Newly Signed Net Neutrality Law

2 comments

  1. Net Neutrality is stupid. I work in IT. The law is equivalent to myself and my neighbor paying the same for groceries, even though I have a family of 5 and go to the store 3 times a week, and my neighbor is 80, lives alone and goes to the store once every 2 weeks. Why would we pay the same?

    And has the world ended since the law stopped (like the proponents said)?

    This is the government penalizing certain businesses. Nothing more.

  2. Artificial Scarcity is essential to predatory capitalism. Big Cable can’t compete. Too bad. The internet is part of the commons. It is not an information service, it is a place where people communicate.

    Neither govt nor corporate big brother has a right to decide who can talk with whom. A dumb bent pipe, packet agnostic and delivered fast is what the internet should be.

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About Michael Brown

Michael Brown has lived in Santa Clarita his whole life. Graduating from Saugus High School in 2016, he continued to stay local by attending The Master’s University, where he achieved a Bachelor's Degree in Communication. Michael joined KHTS in January of 2018 as a news intern, and has since gone on to become the News Director for the KHTS Newsroom. Since joining KHTS, Michael has covered many breaking news stories (both on scene and on air), interviewed dozens of prominent state and federal political figures, and interacted with hundreds of residents from Santa Clarita. When he is not working, Michael enjoys spending time with his family, as well as reading any comic book he can get his hands on.