ALEXANDRIA, VA – In its official comment submitted today, the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) counseled the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that its proposed “Net Neutrality” regulations constitute nothing more than a counterproductive “solution” in search of a speculative problem, and would stifle America’s vital Internet sector, bringing further harm to the ailing U.S. economy. 

CFIF filed its comment in response to the FCC’s October 22, 2009 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which contemplates imposing unnecessary Net Neutrality rules, whose leading advocates have stated openly and explicitly that, “what we want to have in the U.S. and in every society is an Internet that is not private property, but a public utility.”    

“Since the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the Internet has thrived and played a central role in maintaining America’s status as the most prosperous, most entrepreneurial and most innovative nation in human history,” said Timothy Lee, CFIF’s Vice-President of Legal and Public Affairs.  “This didn’t happen by accident or coincidence,” he added.  “Rather, it has occurred precisely because the government has refrained from suffocating it with meritless overregulation. 

“The term ‘Net Neutrality’ itself is dishonest, because such regulations are anything but ‘neutral,’” said Mr. Lee.  “To the contrary, Net Neutrality would constitute bald corporate welfare by regulating Internet service providers to the benefit of self-interested content providers, powerful corporate interests and partisan activists. 

“At a time in which the American public is justifiably opposed to more and more federal regulation and bureaucratic control over our lives, meritless regulations heaped upon an Internet sector that thrived since 1996 without Net Neutrality are counterproductive to the FCC’s and Administration’s goals of ubiquitous broadband access,” Lee continued.  “Rather, flexibility and freedom for consumers and Internet service providers to manage networks and bring new innovations to market are critical to achieve that goal.  Net Neutrality will only undermine incentives to further invest and innovate, with American consumers ultimately paying the price. 

“The bottom line is that future Internet growth and innovation depend wholly upon encouraging continued private investment in high-speed networks, which has brought us such breathtaking progress in just over one decade.  The FCC should abandon its proposed Net Neutrality rule, and instead work to incentivize – or at least refrain from disincentivizing – further private investment in high-speed Internet infrastructure,” Lee concluded. 

To read CFIF’s comment as it was submitted to the FCC, click here (.pdf). 

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The Center for Individual Freedom is a non-profit, non-partisan organization with over 250,000 grassroots supporters and activists established in 1998 to safeguard and advance Constitutional rights and free-market principles, and to ensure continued American innovation, leadership, economic prosperity and worldwide entrepreneurial preeminence.