The FCC voted to destroy net neutrality and give big cable companies control over what we see and do online. On February 27th, the Internet will Flood the Senate with phone calls, emails, and meetings. Are you in?

The US state of Washington is on the verge of passing a sweeping new set of net neutrality safeguards that would apply to all carriers within its borders. The bill, HB 2282, would bar anyone offering broadband services within the state from throttling traffic, offering paid prioritization, or blocking lawful content. The bill also requires ISPs to post their policies on traffic management within their networks online for all to sde.

Washington became the first state Monday to set up its own net-neutrality requirements after U.S. regulators repealed Obama-era rules that banned internet providers from blocking content or interfering with online traffic. "We know that when D.C. fails to act, Washington state has to do so," Gov. Jay Inslee said before signing the measure that lawmakers passed with bipartisan support. "We know how important this is."

Just days after Washington passed its momentous law protecting net neutrality, Oregon has followed suit. Indeed, it now appears that the entire west coast of the United States will soon have laws protecting net neutrality. The Oregon law (HB4155) sailed through both legislative chambers, and now awaits near-certain signature by state governor Kate Brown.

Ajit Pai’s FCC is, like the rest of the Trump Train, off to a rollicking and hypocritical start, if two big news items this week are anything to go by. On Tuesday, Pai introduced an initiative to identify areas desperately in need of broadband deployment (good!) and today, the Washington Post reports that the FCC has blocked nine companies from participating in a federal program that subsidizes broadband service for low-income households (bad!).

Republicans in Congress are continuing to push a net neutrality law that would preempt state net neutrality rules and let Internet service providers charge online services for prioritized access to Internet users. The Open Internet Preservation Act would prohibit ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful Internet content but clear the way for paid prioritization or "fast lanes."

ISPs continue to buy state laws preventing towns and cities from making their own, local broadband infrastructure decisions. An effort in Wyoming to pass legislation that would award state grants to help rural Wyoming communities get high-speed internet instead got hijacked by CenturyLink and Charter Spectrum lobbyists, resulting in a bill getting passed this week that simply blocked towns and cities from being able to deploy their own broadband networks.

The internet providers that cheered on the Federal Communications Commission’s killing of net neutrality in December may yet regret getting the thing they wished for. In the absence of federal open-internet protections, states across the country are starting to pass their own laws—a coast-spanning patchwork of regulations that companies like AT&T and Comcast may find harder to comply with than the now-axed Obama-era policy, which prevented broadband companies from slowing down or blocking access to websites.

In the three months since the FCC decided to repeal existing net neutrality protections, a sizable political coalition has worked to reinstate net neutrality through a variety of legal procedures. Both at the state and municipal level, open internet advocates and politicians have launched into action, ranging from lawsuits to executive orders to legislation in order to save the internet as we know it.

It would be one of the largest municipal broadband networks in the world.  Now, Los Angeles is studying an aggressive plan to protect net neutrality.

n February, three middle school students helped push a statewide net neutrality bill. Today, Gov. Kate Brown is headed to the girls’ middle school in Portland, where she will sign the bill into law. “It’s an honor for the Governor to come to our school and sign a bill that’s so important to the three of us,” Luca, a 12-year-old at Mt. Tabor Middle School, told Gizmodo in an email.

California this week will attempt to pass what could be the toughest net neutrality rules in the nation, but will likely need your help to beat back ISP lobbyists. California's SB 822 will be debated this week in California. The bill effectively mirrors the FCC rules ISPs are trying to kill, but actually takes things further by prohibiting ISPs from using usage caps and "zero rating" anti-competitively. Local supporters of the initiative tell DSLReports.com that they face a hard fight against entrenched lobbyists in the state, and some lawmakers are on the fence.

In another setback for net neutrality, Mignon Clyburn is resigning from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Big business is quietly trouncing cities in the fight over the future of the internet. The results of an obscure, bureaucratic battle inside the U.S. communications regulator could decide not only which Americans get ultra-fast internet but how much it’ll cost and even what city streetlights will look like. On Wednesday, a committee created by the Federal Communications Commission will meet to frame the future of 5G, a technology that will make downloads dramatically faster on phones and perhaps replace home broadband for some.

In direct response to the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) December vote to repeal net neutrality protections, more than 100 mayors nationwide have now signed a pledge vowing to defend the open internet at the local level.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is allegedly delaying the repeal of net neutrality to help web providers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast, Motherboard reports. The slow pace of implementing the repeal, which will allow Internet service providers to prioritize certain traffic, is in sharp contrast to the rapid speed at which Pai pushed the new rules through the FCC for approval despite a significant amount of public concern.

But the Senate is about to vote, and it’s time to pay attention.

A gubernational candidate in Michigan wants the entire state to have free, publicly owned Internet. Abdul El-Sayed, running as Democrat in this fall's election, calls it "Mi-Fi." Public networks are an idea that has been growing in both political parties. In January, there were rumors that President Trump was going to push for a nationalized 5G network outside of private control, that idea has yet to formally materialize on the national scale.

More than a dozen Democratic senators called publicly Wednesday for reinstating net neutrality protections, and moved to force a vote on the proposal.

Star Wars references. Dorky tweets. Goofy videos. The FCC chair just wants to be one of the tech nerds, but he seems to be trying to destroy everything they believe in.

The US Senate voted 52 to 47 for net neutrality. Now, the question is: Will the House support net neutrality, or will it -- or President Donald Trump -- shovel dirt on net neutrality's grave?

In an interview just prior to leaving the FCC this month, former Commissioner Mignon Clyburn took aim at the agency where she worked for nearly nine years, saying it has abandoned its mission to safeguard consumers and protect their privacy and speech. Clyburn, a net neutrality proponent who served as interim FCC chief in 2013, equated the FCC’s mission to the Starfleet Prime Directive, saying the agency’s top priority is to ensure “affordable, efficient, and effective” access to communications—a directive it has effectively deserted under the new administration, working instead to advance the causes of “last-mile monopolies.”

As Mignon Clyburn left the Federal Communications Commission, the longtime telecom regulator worried that the FCC is abandoning its "prime directive" of protecting consumers. "I'm an old Trekkie," Clyburn told Ars in a phone interview, while comparing the FCC's responsibility to the Star Trek fictional universe's Prime Directive. "I go back to my core, my prime directive of putting consumers first." If the FCC doesn't do all it can to bring affordable communications services to everyone in the US, "our mission will not be realized," she said.

The FCC remains under heavy fire for its mindless assault on popular net neutrality protections. But the agency has also been facing widespread, bipartisan criticism for the FCC's decision to gut decades-old media consolidation rules.

Congress is less than 50 votes from passing a measure that would restore net neutrality rules to the internet. The motion, which passed the Senate on May 16th, would use the Congressional Review Act (or CRA) to undo Ajit Pai’s December order, effectively restoring the net neutrality protections passed in 2015.

It’s the dawn of a new era in America, one without any net neutrality protections—unless you happen to live in Washington state. On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of federal net neutrality protections officially went into effect. The end of those rules triggered a new state law in Washington that was passed in March, but would only go into effect once the federal rules changed. The Washington law prohibits telecom providers from blocking content or devices, throttling traffic, or participating in paid prioritization.

Net Neutrality rules that required internet service providers to offer equal access to all web content are no longer in effect as of Monday.

Legislators try to hammer out a deal, as critics fume over cuts made to a bill that supporters had hoped would set the national standard for net neutrality protection.

After a hearing that stripped California’s gold standard net neutrality bill of much of its protections, California legislators have negotiated new amendments that restore the vast majority of those protections to the bill. The big ISPs and their money did not defeat the voices of the many, many people who want and need a free and open Internet.

As net neutrality will likely end on June 11, understanding the impact on consumer path-to-purchase behavior becomes increasingly important for ISPs.

After intense speculation, President Trump said today that he has selected Judge Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee to succeed retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. In his announcement, the president introduced his nominee as a jurist with “impeccable credentials” and as “a judge’s judge.”

Villagers who could not download films because of slow broadband speeds take matters into their own hands.

Congress may soon vote on a new bill that would set net neutrality down as a matter of law rather than a set of rules to be changed every few years by the FCC. The “21st Century Internet Act,” introduced by Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO), would ban blocking, throttling, paid prioritization, and eliminates all questions of jurisdiction. The bill, announced online and at an event in Washington, DC today, would modify the Communications Act of 1934 (greatly built upon by the 1996 Telecommunications Act) and add a new “Title VIII” full of stipulations specific to internet providers.

Blockchain is the technology that is likely to have the greatest impact in the next few decades, and it’s not social media.

Sitting at his Civil Lines residence in Delhi one evening in May, Pahwa, co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation – a volunteer-driven organisation that advocates and educates on internet-related issues – is recounting how he came to spearhead one of the largest mass movements to defend the internet as we know it in India. As founder and chief editor of MediaNama, a popular website for news and analysis on digital media in the country, Pahwa had been observing, with increasing alarm, the actions...