Is throttling illegal?
Censorship means controlling or restricting the internet service speed or connection as a way of managing access. Several discussions have been made over the years about whether or not specific kinds of throttling are unlawful. Here is an overview of the legality issues surrounding throttling practices.
This is common knowledge in the contemporary world through the policies set in place by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Rules.
In 2015, the FCC imposed net neutrality rules and made throttling prohibited. These rules prevented internet providers such as Comcast and Verizon to deliberately degrade the speeds of a whole genre of content, like streaming media services. Nevertheless, these net neutrality rules were dismantled in 2017.
At the moment, there is no federal law that specifically outlaws throttling for wired connections. The FCC and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have the jurisdiction to act on throttling practices on an individual basis, in instances where they have been determined to be anti-competitive, misleading, or unjust. Thus, there are no Federal prohibitions against throttling across the board.
State Laws
It is important to note that some states have passed their laws regarding net neutrality and throttling of internet connection. For instance, a state in the United States of America, CA has enacted legislation banning ISPs from restricting or slowing down internet traffic. However, it will be implemented in practice and the current and future legislation is being contested in court by industry associations.
Several other states also have laws against throttling. But there is no single state-level prohibition pattern in the country, that is the case. Compliance has also been lax and has been determined by the individual states’ laws.
Antitrust Issues
While technically the act of throttling is not inherently unlawful, certain approaches to it have been questioned for their anti-competitive purposes. For instance, the FTC in the past investigated claims of Google slowing internet speed for gadgets using other search engines. Nevertheless, the mentioned case was ended without any action, but it unmasked the possibility of using throttling to facilitate anticompetitive activities.
If an internet provider were to be identified as relying on throttling to disadvantage competitors’ services or content, it could violate federal or state anti-trust laws against unfair competition. However, each would be examined on its merit by antitrust authorities to establish whether the perceived violation exists.
Data Discrimination
It is also important to note debates over whether some forms of throttling amount to unreasonable ‘data discrimination.’ The authors’ opinions suggest that internet providers should not be permitted to target and degrade particular applications, even if their actions are not technically anticompetitive or in violation of net neutrality principles.
Discriminatory throttling practices have included: reducing the data rate that video streaming services like Netflix use, while allowing other video traffic through; limiting download speeds during busy hours; and restricting P2P bandwidth.
Although such measures have not been conclusively considered unlawful by legal authorities, many consumer advocacy groups oppose such discriminatory throttling activities. However, it would take more regulation to ban them completely as they are popular among many people.
After the removal of federal net neutrality rules, most aspects of throttling remain legal ambiguities in the United States. Even if there remain some egregious cases that regulators could still claim as antitrust or even consumer protection issues, most minor throttling practices are probably legal with no coherent federal prohibitions. At present, it remains a mixed concept about establishing its totality of illegality.
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