Pai Says Restoring Internet Freedom Draft Order Circulates, to Be Released Wednesday

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Tuesday at just past 11 a.m. EST he's circulating a draft "restoring internet freedom" order to be voted on at the Dec. 14 commissioners' meeting, abandoning the agency's "failed" 2015 "heavy-handed, utility-style" approach. The draft will be released Wednesday, he said. Already, stakeholders including Free Press and USTelecom began reacting.

"Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the Internet," Pai said in a release. "Instead, the FCC would simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that’s best for them and entrepreneurs and other small businesses can have the technical information they need to innovate." The FTC "will once again be able to police ISPs, protect consumers, and promote competition, just as it did before 2015. Notably, my proposal will put the federal government’s most experienced privacy cop, the FTC, back on the beat to protect consumers’ online privacy," he said.

“Speaking of transparency, when the prior FCC adopted President Obama’s heavy-handed Internet regulations, it refused to let the American people see that plan until weeks after the FCC’s vote," Pai said. "This time, it’ll be different. Specifically, I will publicly release my proposal to restore Internet freedom tomorrow -- more than three weeks before the Commission’s December 14 vote."