Coalition Urges FCC to 'Clarify Ambiguities' in Proposed Net Neutrality Rules

Consumer advocacy organizations urged the FCC Thursday to "clarify ambiguities that ISPs could exploit" in its proposed net neutrality rules. The American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, New America's Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge, Fight for the Future, and United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry said in a letter posted Thursday in docket 23-320 that ISPs could circumvent the proposed no-throttling rule because it "does not explicitly say that an ISP can’t pick out particular apps or categories of apps in order to speed them up." The coalition asked the commission to "ensure that reasonable network management can’t be used to single out an app or kind of app," warning that ISPs could "distort competition" by throttling certain applications. In addition, it asked the commission to bar ISPs from "using interconnection to circumvent net neutrality."