A federal judge in California decided on Tuesday that a law on the first neutrality in the field of net neutrality that was adopted in the state in 2018 can now be applied, which marks a huge victory for proponents of a more egalitarian internet and paves the way for other states to start setting up iinternet rules of their own.
After the Trump administration moved on eliminate the protection of net neutrality at national level in 2018, California legislators had try to take matters into your own hands by crafting legislation design to prevent iinternet service providers to block or slow down web traffic.
Not long after it was approved, the Digital Protection Act was has met with legal opposition by telecommunications giants, including AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and others, as well as from the Trump-era Justice Department, which sued to block the law hours after it first went into effect.
But on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Mendez ruled that the law could continue to be enforced, and also rejected a pending order. of a telecom company that includes AT&T, Verizon and Charter.
“The judge found that the law is on a solid legal basis and that ISPs are unlikely to dominate it,” wrote Barbara van Schewick, a law professor at Stanford University. one of the legal orders in support of the law, has to the Washington Post.
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“The judge found, as I have long argued, that an agency that says it has no power to regulate, and that it does not have the power to tell others that they cannot regulate,” he said. she said.
The news comes weeks after the Department of Justice– under a net neutrality friendly Biden administration – announced that it was drops his Trump era lawpack against California’s proposed protection.
Thiefour trading groups were involved in the attempts to overthrow the law – said the American Cable Association, CTIA, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and USTelecom – Tuesday that they “will review the court’s opinion before deciding on the next steps,” indicating the potential for an appeal process that will again delay California from enforcing the law.
“A state-by-state approach to Internet regulation will confuse consumers and deter innovation, just as the importance of broadband for all has never been so clear,” the groups said. said in a joint statement. “We agree with the court that a piecemeal approach is unsustainable and that Congress should codify rules for open internet.”