Republicans in Congress just voted to reverse a landmark FCC privacy rule that opens the door for ISPs to sell customer data. Lawmakers provided no credible reason for this being in the interest of Americans, except for vague platitudes about “consumer choice” and “free markets,” as if consumers at the mercy of their local internet monopoly are craving to have their web history quietly sold to marketers and any other third party willing to pay.

Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, and hundreds of other businesses and organizations are calling on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to reverse course and scrap his plans to repeal most of the net neutrality rules. Their letter, made public on Monday, is the latest effort among advocates to sound the alarm about the pending FCC vote on Dec. 12. The commission’s Republican majority is expected to repeal Pai’s proposal that would cancel rules that ban internet providers from blocking or throttling traffic...

By now you've probably heard about Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai's plan to kill net neutrality, a set of rules established by President Obama's administration to keep the internet a free and open service for all - so that internet service providers like Verizon or Comcast can't suddenly block, throttle or favor traffic from one source. Pai's proposal isn't the law of the land yet, but it's expected to pass when the FCC votes on December 14.

AirBnb, Reddit, Shutterstock, Inc, Tumblr, Etsy (ETSY.O), Twitter (TWTR.N) and a long list of small internet companies urged the Federal Communications Commission on Monday to scrap a plan to roll back net neutrality rules.

A letter signed by 200 companies argues that scrapping the rules will hurt the US economy. More than 200 companies, including AirBnb, Reddit and Twitter, are urging the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider its plan to repeal its net neutrality regulations. In a letter addressed to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Monday, the companies asked the agency to reverse course and scrap plans to roll back most of the Obama-era regulations that prevent broadband providers from messing with your internet access.

Trai issued the much-awaited recommendations on net neutrality and has sought to bar telecom service providers from any discriminatory practice on Internet access. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman R.S. Sharma called for Internet, an important platform for India, being kept open and free, and not cannibalised. “No one owns Internet... so, it should be open and accessible to everyone,” Mr. Sharma said, suggesting that service providers should not indulge in gate-keeping of this important platform.

Comcast still won't block or throttle—but paid prioritization may be on the way. By Jon Brodkin.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, as part of the plan to promote his plan to undo the country’s net neutrality rules, has thrown Twitter and other online services under the bus in order to show that it’s not just broadband providers that can exert control over internet content. “When it comes to an open Internet, Twitter is part of the problem,” he explained. “The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate.”

The Federal Communications Commission put out a final proposal last week to end net neutrality. The proposal opens the door for internet service providers to create fast and slow lanes, to block websites, and to prioritize their own content. This isn’t speculation. It’s all there in the text. But a new “fact sheet” sent out by the FCC today asks: what if facts are flexible things that we can bend to our preferred reality? It lists a series of “myths” about the commission’s proposal, followed by “facts” that supposedly debunk them...

For several years now one of the broadband industry's biggest criticisms of net neutrality is that it "utterly devastated" investment into broadband networks. But for just as long, we've noted how every time a journalist or analyst actually dissects that claim, they find it's completely unsupportable. What objective analysts do tend to find is that the telecom sector hires an army of economists, consultants, fauxcademics and lobbyists more than happy to manipulate, distort and twist the data until it supports whatever conclusion they're paid to parrot.

It’s unclear if they were from actual Russian citizens or computer bots originating in the U.S. or elsewhere.

We wrote earlier this week about how Comcast has changed its promises to uphold net neutrality by pulling back from previous statements that it won't charge websites or other online applications for fast lanes. Comcast spokesperson Sena Fitzmaurice has been claiming that we got the story wrong. But a further examination of how Comcast's net neutrality promises have changed over time reveals another interesting tidbit—Comcast deleted a "no paid prioritization" pledge from its net neutrality webpage on the very same day that the Federal Communications Commission announced its initial plan to repeal net neutrality rules.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has published its recommendations for upholding net neutrality guidelines (PDF) across the country today, and boy, do they look good – for consumers, that is. The country has been tussling with the issue of regulating internet service providers’ ability to throttle traffic and create fast lanes for specific sources of content; TRAI has previously sought comments from the public on how to shape its rules. Today, it’s recommended that all ISPs should adhere to the principle of non-discriminatory treatment of content.

After proposing to dismantle net neutrality rules, and setting off a firestorm of criticism, Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said his family has become the target of harassment. During an interview Monday on “Fox & Friends,” viewers were shown cardboard signs that host Steve Doocy said were put up at Pai's home in suburban Virginia. One sign, appearing to refer to Pai's children, read: “They will come to know the truth. Dad murdered Democracy in cold blood.”

The company’s promise not to throttle traffic is full of holes. By April Glaser.

India's telecom regulator has published recommendations strongly backing net neutrality, bringing the country a step closer to what could be the world's most progressive policy on equal internet access for all. This is in sharp contrast to current efforts in the US to reverse net neutrality rules introduced by former President Barack Obama.

On Dec. 14, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on a proposal that could, if the critics are to be believed, change the internet forever. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has put forward a proposal that would roll back rules protecting net neutrality, a founding principle of the internet that demands internet service providers (ISPs) treat all internet traffic equally. That means they can’t block content, throttle traffic from particular sources, or create “fast lanes” that speed up traffic for content providers that pay extra for the privilege.

AT&T: Your Internet service won't change after FCC eliminates net neutrality rules.

AT&T's push to end net neutrality rules continued yesterday in a blog post that says the company has never blocked third-party applications and that it won't do so even after the rules are gone. Just one problem: the blog post fails to mention that AT&T blocked Apple's FaceTime video chat application on iPhones in 2012 and 2013. Policy Director Matt Wood of advocacy group Free Press pointed out the omission in a tweet...

Comcast is defending its changed net neutrality pledges in the face of criticism from Internet users. The deletion of a net neutrality promise immediately after the Federal Communications Commission started repealing its net neutrality rules is just a "language" change, the company says. Comcast is telling customers that it still has no plans to institute paid prioritization—while avoiding a promise that it won't do so in the future.