A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that California could, for the first time, enforce its strict net neutrality law, paving the way for the state to ban ISPs from delaying or delaying access to premium service websites and applications. block.
Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill in 2018, making California the first state to adopt net neutrality legislation. Open internet advocates hoped the law would prompt Congress and other states to follow suit. The Trump administration quickly sued to block the law, which prevented it from coming into force for years while the case was tied up in court.
Biden’s administration rejected the lawsuit earlier this month. But in a separate case, the telecommunications industry has asked a federal judge to continue blocking the law. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge John A. Mendez denied their request and allowed California to begin enforcing the law.
California Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and lawmaker, called the ruling “a great victory for open access to the Internet, our democracy and our economy.”
“The internet is the core of modern life. We all need to be able to decide for ourselves where we go on the internet and how we access information,” Wiener said. “We can not allow large companies to make these decisions for us.”
In a joint statement, several associations in the telecommunications industry said they would review the judge’s decision “before deciding on the next steps.” They called on Congress to introduce net neutrality rules for the country rather than relying on states to come up with regulations themselves.
“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,” reads the statement from the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, ACA Connects, the National Cable. and Telecommunications Association and USTelecom.
California law was prompted by the Federal Communications Commission’s decision in 2017 to repeal net neutrality rules that applied nationwide. The telecommunications industry has fought hard against the bill, arguing that it would discourage businesses from investing in faster internet speeds.
However, lawyers say that without the rules, it will make it easy for ISPs to benefit from their own services by making it harder for clients to access their competitors’ websites and programs.
The law seeks to prohibit ISPs from slowing down customers’ data streams based on the content they view. This prevents providers from speeding up access to sites that are willing to pay extra for special treatment.
“The ability of an ISP to block, delay or expedite content based on a user’s ability to pay for service diminishes the idea of a competitive market and the public transfer of information at the core of our increasingly digital and connected world, ‘said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.