Mozilla Files Arguments Against the FCC Re: Net Neutrality

UPDATED: Full Text of Brief Filed by Mozilla
160 pages; PDF. 

Today, Mozilla is filing our brief in Mozilla v. FCC – alongside other companies, trade groups, states, and organizations – to defend net neutrality rules against the FCC’s rollback that went into effect early this year. For the first time in the history of the public internet, the FCC has disavowed interest and authority to protect users from ISPs, who have both the incentives and means to interfere with how we access online content.
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Our brief highlights how this decision is just completely flawed:

– The FCC order fundamentally mischaracterizes how internet access works. Whether based on semantic contortions or simply an inherent lack of understanding, the FCC asserts that ISPs simply don’t need to deliver websites you request without interference.
– The FCC completely renounces its enforcement ability and tries to delegate that authority to other agencies but only Congress can grant that authority, the FCC can’t decide it’s just not its job to regulate telecommunications services and promote competition.
– The FCC ignored the requirement to engage in a “reasoned decision making” process, ignoring much of the public record as well as their own data showing that consumers lack competitive choices for internet access, which gives ISPs the means to harm access to content and services online.

Additional Mozilla v. FCC briefs will be filed by various parties who are intervening or friends of the court through November. After that process is complete, oral arguments will take place and the court will rule.

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