The Community Broadband Act of 2016, which was sponsored by Rep. Anna Eshoo, the California Democrat, is designed to accompany a similar Senate measure backed by Sen. Cory Booker, the New Jersey Democrat, and Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, along with several of their colleagues. Eshoo’s legislation, which is expected to face fierce opposition from Republicans, comes one month after a federal court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to preempt Comcast and AT&T-backed state laws that pose barriers to community broadband development.

A federal appeals court in California on Monday dismissed a U.S. government lawsuit that accused AT&T Inc of deception for reducing internet speeds for customers with unlimited mobile data plans once their use exceeded certain levels.

Trade associations representing wireless, cable and broadband operators on Friday urged the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse a ruling upholding the Obama administration’s landmark rules barring internet service providers from obstructing or slowing consumer access to web content. By David Shepardson.

J. Trevor Hughes of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, explores the common misconception of an internet without borders.

Europe is running out of time to protect net neutrality. One month after a US federal court upheld strong rules protecting net neutrality—the principle that all content on the internet should be equally accessible—the battle over how to protect the internet’s open, freewheeling nature has shifted to Europe. A coalition of prominent open internet advocates, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, is mounting a last-ditch campaign urging European officials to stand up to the telecom industry and strengthen the...

A group of 20 major telcos including Deutsche Telekom, Nokia, Vodafone, and BT promise to launch 5G networks in every country in the European Union by 2020 — so long as governments decide to weaken...

The United Nations officially condemned the practice of countries shutting down access to the internet at a meeting of the Human Rights Council on Friday. A resolution entitled The promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet effectively extends human rights held offline to the internet. It was passed by consensus, but only after a determined effort by a number of countries, including China and Russia, to pull out key parts of the text.

High-speed internet service can be defined as a utility, a federal court has ruled, a decision clearing the way for more rigorous policing of broadband providers and greater protections for web users. The decision from a three-judge panel at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday comes in a case about rules applying to a doctrine known as net neutrality, which prohibit broadband companies from blocking or slowing the delivery of internet content to consumers.

This is extremely unfortunate, but not surprising. Google has made some noise sounding supportive of the TPP over the past year or so, and now it's put out a blog post strongly supporting the agreement, and claiming that it's good for intellectual property and the internet. The company is wrong. The statement is right about a big problem on the internet -- the growing restrictions and limitations on the internet in different jurisdictions...

We paid for the research with taxes, and Internet sharing is easy. What's the hold-up?

Charter Communications purchased Time Warner Cable in a deal estimated at $78 billion, and today the US Department of Justice and FCC chairman Tom Wheeler gave the acquisition the green light. The companies agreed to the deal in May 2015, when it was estimated at $55 billion. The approval comes with a few caveats: The DoJ says Charter is not allowed to impede access to streaming content, for one. Wheeler says Charter will not be...

Network congestion is no longer a valid excuse for bandwidth caps, either – if it was, they wouldn’t be offering unlimited options. Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell nailed the issue on the head more than three years ago when he said ISP data caps are about monetization, not network congestion.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said yesterday that he has no plans to investigate Netflix for throttling its own video streams, despite Netflix's critics calling for an investigation. Netflix acknowledged last week that it reduces video quality on most mobile networks to help users stay under their data caps and avoid data overage charges. Opponents of net neutrality rules that prevent Internet...

Netflix's criticism of usage caps and vocal support of net neutrality (not to mention its threat as a pay TV competitor) has helped it replace Google as public enemy number one for the telecom industry. As such, every PR, lobbying, and political asset at the telecom industry's disposal has taken aim at the streaming giant over the last few years, accusing the company of being a dirty freeloader and horrible hypocrite that's unfairly lobbying the government to attack poor...

You'd be hard pressed to find a company that's been more involved in trying to kill net neutrality than Verizon. The company successfully sued to overturn the FCC's original, flimsy 2010 neutrality rules, which most ISPs actually liked because they contained enough loopholes to drive several vehicle convoys through. Responding to Verizon's legal assault, the FCC responded last year by taking things further, passing new, (supposedly) more legally sound neutrality rules and...

There’s a reason they call this century the information age: everything is data, data, data. And today, the FCC announced a proposal that would regulate how ISPs — over which all that data flows — have to get your permission to collect and share all that juicy, valuable information. FCC chairman Tom Wheeler announced the proposal in a blog posting on the Huffington Post today. As the fact sheet explains (PDF), the proposal isn’t so much about what ISPs can do, as what they have to tell you.

Internet service providers and wireless carriers would have to seek permission from customers before using their private information for certain marketing purposes, if new rules proposed by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler are approved. For example, ISPs could only share a subscriber's Internet usage habits with advertising companies or other third parties if the subscriber opts in to such usage.

A new report in the Wall Street Journal indicates that the FCC is "probing" whether or not cable operators have taken steps to intentionally harm the rise of streaming video. Specifically, the FCC is investigating claims that cable operators cajole broadcasters into keeping content from streaming service competitors. Dish Network effectively accused Charter of this back in December, when it claimed Charter was trying to "sabotage"...

Presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have decided to celebrate the one year anniversary of the FCC's net neutrality rules -- by once again trying to kill them. Cruz and Rubio have joined six other Senators in pushing the new Restoring Internet Freedom Act (pdf), which would dismantle the rules, walk-back the FCC's Title II reclassification of ISPs as common carriers, and prevent the FCC from trying to pass net neutrality...

(Image: Rob Pegoraro/Yahoo Tech) Verizon Wireless is streaming all over the idea of net neutrality. Of course, that’s not how the nation’s largest wireless carrier — which just began exempting video streamed via its own go90 video app from the data quotas of its service plans— would describe it. Instead