It's official: the country's top regulator of the internet wants to end net neutrality. Specifically, Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai plans to repeal changes that gave the agency the authority to enforce net neutrality protections—that is, rules requiring internet service providers to treat all internet traffic equally. But he won't likely be able to do so without a big legal fight. 
 
 During a speech today in Washington, Pai announced his intention to undo one of the Obama-era FCC's signature achievements. Although he was light on specifics (he plans to release the full text of his proposal tomorrow), Pai made clear that he would seek to reverse an FCC decision to classify broadband internet access providers as "Title II" common carriers, putting them in the same category as traditional telephone companies. The re-classification gave the FCC authority to impose net neutrality requirements on both wireless and home broadband providers, preventing them from, for example, charging specific sites or companies fees for sending traffic over their networks or slowing down competitors' streaming video offerings. 
 
 "Going forward, we cannot stick with regulations from the Great Depression meant to micromanage Ma Bell," Pai said. 
 
 The FCC will vote on—and given its Republican majority, likely pass—the proposal during an open meeting May 18. But that will only start what promises to be a lengthy battle for the future of net neutrality. To truly torpedo the requirements, Pai will have to make the case that he's doing so for good reason. 
 
 A 1946 law called the Administrative Procedure Act bans federal agencies making "capricious" decisions. The law is meant, in part, to keep regulations from yo-yoing back and forth every time a new party gained control of the White House. The FCC successfully argued in favor of Title II reclassification in federal court just last summer. That effort means Pai might have to make the case that things had changed enough since then to justify a complete reversal in policy. 
 
 "That's a pretty dramatic reversal," says Marc Martin, chair of communications law at Perkins Coie. "Presuming there's an appeal, a court may find that arbitrary." 
 
 Staying Neutral 
 
 Based both on his speech today and previous remarks, it appears that Pai will make the case that Title II reclassification led to a substantial decline in broadband infrastructure investment. Pai says that internet providers large and small are spending less money upgrading their networks and expanding into new markets because of the supposed regulatory burden. "Just this week, 22 small ISPs, each of which has about 1,000 broadband customers or fewer, told the FCC that the Title II order had affected their ability to obtain financing," Pai said. "They said it had slowed, if not halted, the development and deployment of innovative new offerings which would benefit our customers." 
 
 Indeed, the industry group US Telecom estimates that broadband investment dipped from about $77 billion in 2014 to $76 billion in 2015. But those numbers are in dispute. During a hearing earlier this year, senator Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts) pointed to US Census Bureau estimates that broadband investment increased slightly from $86.6 in 2014 to $87.2 billion in 2015. (Neither organization has published investment data on 2016 yet.) 
 
 'We cannot stick with regulations from the Great Depression meant to micromanage Ma Bell.' FCC Chair Ajit Pai 
 
 In either case, the difference doesn't amount to a significant change, presenting Pai with what would seem to be a challenge in arguing Title II reclassification was the real reason for a purported drop. Other business considerations could also play into changes in telecom spending on network infrastructure, such as a desire to wait and let previous investments pay for themselves before making new ones. The CEO of Verizon, for example, told shareholders that Title II didn't affect the company's investment plans. And Martin points out that a recent auction in which companies spent $19.8 billion to buy rights to use more of the wireless spectrum doesn't exactly look like an industry shy of investing. 
 
 If the infrastructure argument doesn't fly, Pai could also argue that the rules are unnecessary because proverbial fast and slow lanes for the internet never existed. The problem is that's not true. The Bush-era FCC ordered Comcast to stop throttling BitTorrent traffic in 2008, for one. But that's not all. Under a secret agreement with AT&T, Apple blocked iPhone users from making Skype calls over the carrier's network until the FCC pressured the companies into reversing the policy in 2009. And in 2012, AT&T blocked some users from using Apple's Face Time on its network. Had Comcast, and later Verizon, not argued in court that the FCC had no authority to stop them from blocking and throttling content, then the agency might never have needed to pass Title II reclassification in the first place. 
 
 Even if Pai's attempts to undo Title II classification fail, Congress could undo the agency's authority to enforce net neutrality regulations. Senate Democrats can't do much about Pai's proposal, but they are already vowing a "tsunami of resistance" if their colleagues across the aisle try to act. It's not clear whether that promised tidal wave includes a filibuster. Either way, whether in the courts or the legislature, the fight to save net neutrality is far from over. ||||| You can say this much for new FCC Chair Ajit Pai: He keeps his word. Unfortunately for people who believe that internet service providers should not be allowed to determine what sites you visit, Pai’s key promise has been to kill net neutrality. Today, Pai pulled back the curtain on his plan to undo all recent efforts to regulate broadband. 
 
 Pai outlined his vision for the future of net neutrality today in Washington, D.C., at an event held by anti-regulation think tank FreedomWorks. 
 
 The Chair’s goal is to replace the neutrality rules that have been in place since 2015 with a voluntary standard. In short, we’d lose the law that tells companies what they can’t do and punishes them for breaking it, and instead replace it with a pinky swear from Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and everyone else that, sure, they’ll play along — until they don’t. 
 
 Pai called the Internet, “the greatest free-market success story in history,” thanks, he said, to a hands-off approach by government. 
 
 According to Pai, that all changed in 2015 thanks to “politics,” not law or facts. To counterbalance the “party-line” vote of 2015, then, he has a new proposal that, too, is certain to find support and opposition based on party lines. 
 
 Let’s break it down. 
 
 The Current Rule 
 
 The version of net neutrality we have now is actually something of a 2.0, after the original 2010 iteration was gutted by a Verizon lawsuit in Jan. 2014. That left only a few ways that the FCC could regroup and create a stronger rule that would stand up in court. 
 
 So, after nearly a year spent receiving public comment and dithering over details, the FCC finally adopted the Open Internet Rule in 2015. 
 
 The Rule reclassified broadband providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. Enacting that classification gave the FCC legal authority to then create three bright-line rules for what ISPs are and aren’t allowed to do with your internet traffic: 
 
 Broadband providers may not block access to legal content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices. They may not impair or degrade lawful internet traffic on the basis of content, application, services, or any classes thereof. They may not favor some internet traffic over other internet traffic in exchange for consideration of any kind — no paid prioritization or fast lanes. 
 
 The telecom industry and its lobbyists sued over the rule, but in June 2016 a federal appeals court sided with the Commission and let the rule stand. 
 
 What Pai Wants To Have Instead 
 
 Today, Pai is proposing a new rule that will have three main sections. 
 
 First, he wants to straight-up undo the Title II classification. Instead of putting ISPs under the same broad heading as phone services (which many of them also are, these days), they’d go back to being considered “information services” regulated under Title I of the law. 
 
 “This Title I classification was expressly upheld by the Supreme Court in 2005,” Pai said, and to his view, “it’s more consistent with the facts and the law.” 
 
 However, in the 2014 ruling that upended the first net neutrality rule, the court held that so long as ISPs are considered information services and not telecommunications services, the Commission doesn’t have the authority to put a net neutrality rule in place. So without that classification as the foundation, other things start to fall apart. 
 
 Second, Pai wants to scrap the part of the Open Internet Rule known as the conduct standard. Critics have claimed that the standard is too vague, because it was designed to be deliberately open-ended, not tied to any existing tech or standards in order to be future-proof. That standard says that ISPs should not harm consumers or edge providers, but does not delineate how. 
 
 The standard is the guideline by which, for example, the FCC evaluated AT&T and Verizon to determine if their sponsored data and zero rating programs were harmful to consumers. (The Commission said in 2016 that they were; in Feb. 2017, the FCC changed its position and completely scrapped the reports from last year.) 
 
 To Pai, this is bad. Zero-rating is popular among consumers, he said, but, “the prior FCC had met the enemy, and it was consumers getting something for free from their wireless providers.” 
 
 (The recent renaissance of unlimited data plans suggests that wireless carriers have found a better way than targeted zero-rating to attract and retain subscribers.) 
 
 Lastly, Pai is opening the floor to comment on what to replace the Commission’s three key bright-line rules with, if anything. 
 
 Why Change? 
 
 In his remarks, Pai repeated his claim that the Open Internet Rule has depressed investment in broadband infrastructure, and must be stopped. 
 
 “Among our nation’s 12 largest Internet service providers, domestic broadband capital expenditures decreased by 5.6% percent, or $3.6 billion” between 2014 and 2016, Pai said. “This decline is extremely unusual. It is the first time that such investment has declined outside of a recession in the Internet era.” 
 
 There is one huge problem with Pai’s assertion, a statistic for which the FCC has not provided a source. It points to investment figures from 2014 through 2016, but the neutrality rules weren’t approved until Feb. 2015 and didn’t go into effect until June 2015. So the Chair is blaming a rule that didn’t exist for a large part of the time period he’s talking about. 
 
 And indeed, looking at publicly available financial data for major ISPs in both 2016 and 2017 gives no indication that providers are scaling back on investment. 
 
 Pai also claims that it’s bad for smaller ISPs, “which simply do not have the means or the margins to withstand the Title II regulatory onslaught.” 
 
 As to why a rule saying, effectively, “don’t do this thing you already claim you aren’t doing and have no need to do” is a regime that would cost providers money, however, he did not explain, saying only that Title II “hung like a black cloud” over small businesses. In short, his argument is that Title II costs money, and money means that small ISPs are not serving poor and/or rural customers as well as they could. 
 
 His goals, Pai says, are to bring high-speed broadband access to more Americans; to create jobs; to boost competition; and to protect your privacy. 
 
 The first three are all related to the idea of investment. The privacy protection, however, connects directly back to the now-defunct ISP privacy rule. 
 
 MORE: The ISP privacy rule is dead, but could anyone bring it back? 
 
 The FCC adopted that rule — which limited what your ISP could do with your data before getting your permission — in Oct. 2016, based on the legal underpinning of Title II regulation. But Congress passed, and the White House signed, a resolution killing off that rule. That puts privacy into a legal limbo: The FTC can’t regulate common carriers, and the FCC can’t regulate ISPs. Pai’s solution? Kill the common carrier designation, to hand over privacy protection to the FTC. 
 
 Why This Is A Terrible Idea 
 
 The FTC has very limited authority to make industry-wide regulations, and can really only create rules that prohibit unfair or deceptive business practices. 
 
 So it can not, for example, tell ISPs to stop collecting and selling sensitive user data, so long as these companies are disclosing the practice in their fine print. That means we must rely on ISPs promising to play nice. 
 
 In most of the country, thanks to the history of cable, broadband providers are a local monopoly. Several reports over the years have shown ghat for the majority of is, competition is nonexistent. 
 
 That leads to an environment where prices get higher and customer service gets worse, because there’s basically nothing you can do about it; you’re a captive audience. Customers are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with their internet providers, consistently ranking them worst among any industry. 
 
 With that as the backdrop, it’s very easy to be skeptical that any voluntary promise is even worth the pixels it’s printed with — because companies break their promises all the time. 
 
 Stripping ISPs of their common carrier classification would make it the FTC’s job, not the FCC’s, to make sure that the ISPs do what they’re going to say — but there’s a big catch there. 
 
 The FTC can only step in if companies are doing something anticompetitive or if they say one thing but then do another, basically. If, absent net neutrality, Comcast or AT&T were to change their terms of service to say something like, “All use of Netflix instead of our proprietary video service will incur you a $1/month additional ‘network usage’ fee, otherwise we throttle it to 768 Kbps” then they’d be in the clear to charge you that fee or throttle your connection. It would only be if they didn’t first disclose their intention that the FTC would bust them. 
 
 Companies can, and do, change their terms of service and customer agreements all the time. If you’re lucky, you get notice and the policy is comprehensible. If not, it happens on the sly. Without a law, there is absolutely nothing to prevent companies from changing their terms and creating fast lanes and additional access fees down the line when people aren’t paying attention. 
 
 What Happens Now 
 
 “From a political standpoint, there is no question that the easiest path would be to do nothing,” Pai said. “Leave Title II alone and move on to other issues.” 
 
 He’s definitely right about that. Alas, we have no such luck; Pai is apparently not interested in the easy path. So now, the fight begins again. 
 
 He’s releasing the full text of the NPRM and NOI — the proposed rule and the open questions the Commission’s asking — on April 27, for the FCC to vote whether or not to consider it in the Commission’s open meeting on May 18. 
 
 If the FCC votes to consider the NPRM and NOI, that will kick off a months-long comment process where the public — which includes advocacy groups, businesses, individuals, and anyone else you can think of — gets to start having its say. 
 
 The battle lines are already drawn, and they look a lot like they did in 2014. In favor of doing away with the Open Internet Rule are ISPs and the organizations that lobby for their interests — AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and groups like USTelecom and the NCTA (now called the Internet & Television Association). 
 
 The folks asking the FCC to just leave well enough alone, meanwhile, are a wide swath of tech companies and consumer advocates. The big internet companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Reddit, and Twitter started asking Pai to leave net neutrality alone a couple of weeks ago. 
 
 They’re joined today by another chorus of companies: Tech advocacy group Engine sent the FCC a letter in support of net neutrality signed by more than 800 internet businesses from all 50 states. Many are small, niche companies or new entrants you probably haven’t heard of — and that are relying on an open internet to start and grow their businesses. The list also includes several companies that were once tiny and scrappy and that successfully used the open internet to make their now-widely-known businesses grow, including: Etsy, Medium, Meetup, NextDoor, Patreon, Reddit, and Warby Parker. 
 
 Our colleagues down the hall at Consumers Union (the policy and mobilization arm of Consumerist’s parent company, Consumer Reports) had strong words for Pai. 
 
 “Doing away with net neutrality rules could ultimately mean doing away with the internet as we know it,” said senior policy counsel Jonathan Schwantes. 
 
 “Net neutrality rules keep the internet open for all and ensure consumers can access the websites and apps they – not their internet service provider – choose. Rather than leveling the playing field to spur competition and innovation, Chairman Pai’s proposal would allow a select few corporations to choose winners and losers.” 
 
 “The only way to ensure that all content is treated equally is to keep the the internet classified as a public utility,” Schwantes continued. “In this digital age, where individuals and businesses rely on the internet every day, it should no longer even be a question. Voluntary commitments from broadband providers to adhere to net neutrality ‘principles’ are simply not a substitute — especially when there would be no cop left on the beat with the authority to ensure providers stick to their promises.” 
 
 He added “millions of consumers voiced their support for net neutrality rules” the first time around, which is true. The Commission had to extend the public comment deadline after a surge of interest crashed its aging online system. In the end, about four million people commented on the net neutrality proceeding — a record-smashing number. 
 
 Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps says that gutting the neutrality rules jeopardizes “core protections for online free speech and competition.” 
 
 “Ending net neutrality would be a body blow to the open dialogue upon which successful self-government depends,” adds Copps, now a special advisor to Common Cause. “It would be a red light for democracy and a green light for cable and telecom giants to control where we go and what we do on the internet.” 
 
 Weeks ago, when Pai first set his sights on net neutrality, lawmakers started promising that a second net neutrality fight would make the first one look “minuscule” in comparison. It seems it is time to start fighting that fight. 
 
 You can read Pai’s full remarks here: PDF. ||||| FILE - This June 19, 2015, file photo, shows the Federal Communications Commission building in Washington. On Tuesday, April 25, 2017, an appeals court upheld "net neutrality" rules that treat the internet... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This June 19, 2015, file photo, shows the Federal Communications Commission building in Washington. On Tuesday, April 25, 2017, an appeals court upheld "net neutrality" rules that treat the internet... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — "Net neutrality" regulations, designed to prevent internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Charter from favoring some sites and apps over others, are on the chopping block. The head of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, on Wednesday proposed undoing the Obama-era rules that have been in place since 2015. 
 
 Here's a look at what the developments mean for consumers and companies. 
 
 ___ 
 
 WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY? 
 
 Net neutrality is the principle that internet providers treat all web traffic equally, and it's pretty much how the internet has worked since its creation. But regulators, consumer advocates and internet companies were concerned about what broadband companies could do with their power as the pathway to the internet — blocking or slowing down apps that rival their own services, for example. 
 
 ___ 
 
 WHAT DID THE GOVERNMENT DO ABOUT IT? 
 
 The FCC in 2015 approved rules, on a party-line vote, that made sure cable and phone companies don't manipulate traffic. With them in place, Comcast can't charge Netflix for a faster path to its customers, or block it or slow it down. Several internet providers said they didn't plan to do those things and Comcast said Wednesday that it supported undoing the net neutrality rules but did not "block, throttle or discriminate" against internet content. 
 
 The net neutrality rules gave the FCC power to go after companies for business practices that weren't explicitly banned as well. For example, the Obama FCC said that "zero rating" practices by AT&T violated net neutrality. The telecom giant exempted its own video app from cellphone data caps, which would save some consumers money, and said video rivals could pay for the same treatment. Pai's FCC spiked the effort to go after AT&T, even before it began rolling out a plan to undo the net neutrality rules entirely. 
 
 A federal appeals court upheld the rules in 2016 after broadband providers sued. 
 
 ___ 
 
 WHY IS THE INDUSTRY OPPOSED? 
 
 Companies say they don't want the stricter regulation that comes with the net neutrality rules. They say the regulations can undermine investment in broadband and introduced uncertainty about what were acceptable business practices. There were concerns about potential price regulation, even though the FCC had said it won't set prices for consumer internet service. 
 
 ___ 
 
 WHAT'S CHANGING FOR CONSUMERS? 
 
 Nothing, for now. 
 
 The FCC is a slow-moving agency, so Pai's announcement merely kicks off a months-long procedure to undo the rules. Democratic lawmakers, activists and companies that support net neutrality have pledged to defend them. Republican lawmakers who opposed the 2015 rules on Wednesday invited Democrats in Congress to work on net neutrality legislation that would take precedence over FCC regulations. 
 
 In the long run, net-neutrality advocates say undoing these rules makes it harder for the government to crack down on internet providers who act against consumer interests and will harm innovation. Those who criticize the rules say undoing them is good for investment in broadband networks. ||||| The FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order was a huge victory for Internet users. Thanks to the millions of you who spoke up for a free and open Internet, we won essential net neutrality protections. 
 
 Now those protections could disappear, as Chairman Pai is considering reversing the Open Internet Order and handing control over the Internet to major telecommunications companies. 
 
 In place of the clear rules established by the FCC's Open Internet Order, Pai wants to substitute voluntary industry promises to uphold some net neutrality principles. We need to let Congress know that we won’t trade real protections for empty promises. ||||| Today, the chairman of the FCC announced his desire to abandon the agency’s net neutrality protections – which protect online competition, free speech, and privacy from interference by Internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T – by undermining the legal authority behind those protections. 
 
 Rolling back the FCC’s Open Internet Order would mean losing the only rules that meaningfully prevent ISPs from taking advantage of their control over your Internet connection to shape your Internet experience and the market for services and devices that rely on that Internet connection. Since most Americans have only one option for broadband service, ISPs would have unchecked power to extract tolls from you and from businesses that wish to reach you. While the big incumbents like Facebook and Netflix might be able to pay those tolls, the next Facebook or Netflix would have a very hard time competing. Investors hesitate to fund startups that can be held for ransom by someone like an ISP. And the situation is even more dire for nonprofits like schools, libraries, educational sites, and political groups. 
 
 Chairman Pai suggests these fears are unfounded, but we’ve seen ISPs use every method at their disposal to favor their own content over competitors, going up to and even over the lines drawn by the previous FCC. This is particularly concerning given that at least one major ISP, Verizon, ran a news service that banned content regarding mass surveillance and net neutrality itself as contrary to the company’s interests. In Canada, an ISP blocked access to a site being used by a labor union to organize against it. A decade of misguided FCC policymaking unfortunately helped create the dysfunctional ISP market; the Open Internet Order is our best hope for preventing ISPs from abusing their power to become private gatekeepers on speech. 
 
 Today’s announcement cleverly pretends that the current “bright-line rules,” which clearly prohibit blocking and throttling, might survive. The law says otherwise. If Chairman Pai follows through on his intention to “reclassify” broadband service, it would be legally impossible for the FCC to enforce any such rules. How do we know this? Because the DC Circuit said so. 
 
 The same is true for privacy. Pai suggested that the Federal Trade Commission could enforce privacy requirements, but this is an empty promise for two reasons. First, the FTC can only intervene if an ISP breaks a privacy promise, and ISP lawyers are very good at avoiding enforceable promises. Second, a federal appeals court has held that a company can’t be the subject of FTC action if any part of its offerings is a “common carrier,” like telephone service. So if your ISP also offers telephone service, the FTC can’t touch it. That’s the law right now on the west coast and it’s a regime that telecoms doubtless will continue to promote elsewhere. 
 
 In short, Pai’s proposal leaves Internet users and small businesses completely at the mercy of ISPs. No one in the government would be able to step in to prevent abusive blocking and throttling of Internet content, pay-to-play fast lanes, or privacy violations by ISPs. 
 
 That in turn will be devastating for competition, innovation, and free speech. The harms of ISP discrimination and market failure were well-documented in the months-long rulemaking and millions of comments that urged the FCC to protect net neutrality in 2015. The new FCC seems determined to ignore the evidence and the wishes of the vast majority of the public, in order to advance the desires of some powerful ISPs. 
 
 The Internet has won this fight before, and we can win it again. The best way you can help now is to tell Congress to stop the FCC from throwing Internet users and innovators to the wolves. If you have a startup, you can also join a letter from over 800 small businesses from all fifty states in supporting net neutrality. 
 
 Tell Congress: Don't Surrender the Internet. ||||| The Federal Communications Commission will vote next month to start the process of reversing the commission's 2015 net neutrality order, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced in a speech today. 
 
 Earlier today, Pai shared with his fellow commissioners a plan to "reverse the mistake of Title II and return to the light-touch regulatory framework that served our nation so well during the Clinton administration, Bush administration, and the first six years of the Obama administration," he said. 
 
 Pai's net neutrality rollback targets the FCC's February 2015 reclassification of fixed and mobile Internet providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. Title II provides the regulatory authority the FCC used to prohibit ISPs from blocking or throttling traffic and from giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment. The FCC used Title II to impose the net neutrality rules after a previous court decision struck down rules issued without the step of reclassifying ISPs as common carriers. 
 
 Pai said he will seek public comment about the blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization rules, but the act of eliminating the Title II classification of ISPs would also eliminate those rules. Going forward, he said, he wants broadband to be classified as a lightly regulated "Title I information service." 
 
 The FCC vote scheduled for May 18 is on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which seeks comment on Pai's plan and could lead to a final vote later this year. Pai acknowledged that some net neutrality opponents "have called on the FCC to reverse Title II immediately through a declaratory ruling." 
 
 But Pai argued that an NPRM is the appropriate next step. "This decision should be made through an open, transparent process through which every American can share his or her views," he said. 
 
 Pai said he will release the full text of the NPRM tomorrow. The text of his speech is available here. 
 
 Pai did not mention any "voluntary" net neutrality commitments today, even though media reports earlier this month suggested that he wants ISPs to make voluntary net neutrality pledges that could be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. We described in a previous story how voluntary net neutrality commitments would be far less strict than the current rules. 
 
 No more FCC privacy rules 
 
 Pai also addressed the future of broadband privacy rules today. The FCC's previous Democratic leadership used Title II authority to write strict privacy rules for ISPs, which were already undone by Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump. 
 
 Pai today said that "[r]epealing Title II will simply restore the FTC’s authority to police broadband providers’ privacy practices." But that isn't necessarily true. 
 
 The FTC is prohibited from regulating common carriers, but removing the common carrier designation from broadband won't necessarily give the FTC all the authority it needs. A court ruling last year let AT&T escape FTC oversight entirely because it's still a common carrier for phone service. Action by Congress might be necessary to let the FTC regulate the Internet businesses of mobile and landline phone companies. Pai did not mention this complication. 
 
 Pai's speech was hosted by FreedomWorks, a group that Motherboard describes as being "perhaps best known for helping to launch the conservative Tea Party movement. (And also for producing a video depicting Hillary Clinton having sex with a giant panda. Seriously.)" FreedomWorks called last year's court decision upholding the FCC's net neutrality rules "a blow to Internet freedom." 
 
 Pai's speech was "rife with hyperbole, inaccuracies, and misstatements," Georgetown Law lecturer Andrew Schwartzman, an attorney who specializes in media and telecommunications policy, told Ars. Schwartzman pointed to one point in particular, Pai's statement that eliminating Title II would mark a return to Clinton-era policies. 
 
 "In fact, the Internet was governed by Title II during the early years of explosive growth under the Clinton administration," Schwartzman said. "DSL and dial-up accounted for almost all of the traffic during the Clinton administration. At the time, dial-up Internet connections and DSL were regulated as Title II services. DSL was not moved to Title I until 2005, during the second term of the Bush administration." 
 
 The impact of Title II 
 
 Under former Chairman Tom Wheeler, a Democrat, the FCC's Title II decision had numerous other effects. Title II was used to require greater disclosures about hidden fees and data caps, but Pai's new Republican majority already exempted ISPs with 250,000 or fewer subscribers from these rules. The FCC was also trying to stop AT&T and Verizon Wireless programs that exempted their own video services from mobile data caps while charging other video providers for the same data cap exemptions until Pai ended the investigation. 
 
 Title II was also crucial in ending disputes over interconnection payments in which network operators or content providers pay ISPs for direct connections to consumer broadband networks. Before the Title II reclassification, interconnection disputes were harming the quality of video streaming and other Internet services, but those disputes were quickly resolved once the rules were in place. 
 
 More generally, Title II allows either ISPs' customers or their competitors to file complaints about "unjust" or "unreasonable" conduct. All of that will go away once ISPs are no longer classified as common carriers. 
 
 Pai said he intends to "eliminate the so-called Internet conduct standard" that was used in the investigation of data cap exemptions. 
 
 "The FCC used the Internet conduct standard to launch a wide-ranging investigation of free-data programs," Pai said. "Under these programs, wireless companies offer their customers the ability to stream music, video, and the like free from any data limits. They are very popular among consumers, particularly lower-income Americans. But no—the prior FCC had met the enemy, and it was consumers getting something for free from their wireless providers. Following the presidential election, we terminated this investigation before the FCC was able to take any formal action. But we shouldn’t leave the Internet conduct standard on the books for a future commission to make mischief." 
 
 Pai claims Title II killed jobs and investment 
 
 Pai said the FCC's case for Title II "was a fact-free zone," with proponents "looking for an excuse to achieve their longstanding goal of forcing the Internet under the federal government’s control." Title II regulation has harmed investment, he argued. 
 
 "According to one estimate by the nonprofit Free State Foundation, Title II has already cost our country $5.1 billion in broadband capital investment," Pai said. "And given the multiplier effect from such spending, that means Title II has already cost our nation approximately 75,000 to 100,000 jobs." Pai was referring to this blog post. 
 
 Such claims are under dispute. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) recently pointed to US Census figures that tallied up investments by wired, mobile, and satellite telecommunications carriers, finding $87.2 billion of investment in 2015, up from $86.6 in 2014. (Census figures for 2016 weren't available yet.) 
 
 Pai argued that low-income and rural neighborhoods are harmed by Title II because "when businesses cut back on capital expenditures, the areas that provide the most marginal returns on investment are the first to go." 
 
 Reversing the Title II decision "will bring high-speed Internet access to more Americans" because "without the overhang of heavy-handed regulation, companies will spend more building next-generation networks," Pai said. Eliminating Title II regulation of ISPs will also "create jobs" when Americans "go to work building these networks," he said. 
 
 Pai also said net neutrality rules weren't necessary because "there wasn’t a rash of Internet service providers blocking customers from accessing the content, applications, or services of their choice," and there are no "fast lanes and slow lanes" enforced by ISPs. To remind people that ISPs have blocked Internet content in numerous instances, advocacy group Free Press published an updated list of such incidents featuring the likes of Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. Pai's speech featured criticism of Free Press, calling it "a spectacularly misnamed Beltway lobbying group." 
 
 Web companies and Democrats cry foul 
 
 Pai's announcement had been highly anticipated since details of his net neutrality rollback plan were leaked. Net neutrality advocates and Democratic lawmakers laid the groundwork for their opposition to eliminating the current net neutrality rules in the hours leading up to Pai's announcement today. Here are some examples: ||||| One of President Trump’s more ambitious appointees is Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, who on Wednesday unveiled an outline for rolling back Obama Administration rules that regulated the web like a 1890s railroad. Mr. Pai will be maligned by the left for undermining the “open internet,” but his plan would restore freedom and innovation that the federal government disrupted. 
 
 Mr. Pai in a speech at Washington’s Newseum sketched out a plan to untangle the 2015 “net neutrality” rules that classified the internet...
– The concept of "net neutrality" is back in the news, with new FCC chief Ajit Pai laying out his plans to undo rules for internet service providers put in place in 2015, reports Ars Technica. The details are dense, but the general battle lines are drawn: Advocates of the rules say they're necessary to prevent big ISPs from controlling what we see on the internet, while opponents such as Pai see the rules as unnecessary regulations that strangle online enterprise. Here's a look at coverage: The AP has a primer on net neutrality, starting with the definition of it as "the principle that internet providers treat all web traffic equally." For example, Comcast wouldn't be allowed to block or slow down traffic to a service created by a rival. The fight revolves around the arcane reclassification of ISPs as "Title II" common carriers, essentially equating them with public utilities, explains Variety. Read Pai's argument here. He blames "politics" for the 2015 rule change and asks, "Do we want the government to control the internet?" The Consumerist is not happy with the FCC's move. Kate Cox sums up the changes thusly: "We’d lose the law that tells companies what they can’t do and punishes them for breaking it, and instead replace it with a pinky swear from Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and everyone else that, sure, they’ll play along—until they don’t." The Electronic Frontier Foundation frames it this way: Most people have only one broadband service, and scrapping the rules gives ISPs "unchecked power to extract tolls from you and from businesses that wish to reach you." Yes, big content providers such as Netflix and Facebook can afford those tolls, but what about the next Facebook or Netflix? It's encouraging people to let their congressional representatives know they oppose rollback of the rules here. In the opposing camp is the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which argues that Pai's move "would restore freedom and innovation that the federal government disrupted." Among other things, it argues that ISP promises not to block or slow content could be stipulated in service agreements. More than 800 startups and entrepreneurs signed a letter to Pai saying that killing net neutrality might kill them, too. The FCC votes on the move May 18, but this is just the start of a long fight, and Wired sees a decent chance that courts will keep net neutrality rules in place.