A federal judge rejected a telecommunications-industry challenge to California’s two-year-old net neutrality law, clearing the way for the state to begin enforcing the consumer protections.
The law’s supporters argued that stronger protections for net neutrality—the principle that cable and wireless companies should treat all online content under consistent standards—will protect the internet’s open nature and prevent telecom companies from picking winners and losers on the web. Internet-service providers said the rules are unnecessary and interfere with reasonable business practices.
The Tuesday decision from U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez denied an injunction sought by trade groups representing the country’s largest cable and wireless companies. The ruling means officials could start enforcing the rules within weeks absent other legal challenges.
California legislators passed the law in 2018. The state protections followed the spirit of federal rules written during the Obama administration, by barring internet service providers from blocking access to lawful websites or slowing down connections to certain web domains. The law also banned “zero rating,” an industry practice of providing some data free of charge while billing for online traffic from other sources.
A coalition of telephone and cable companies immediately opposed the rule and the Trump administration’s Justice Department sued to block it. The administration argued that new rules passed by a Republican-led Federal Communications Commission not only repealed federal net-neutrality protections but also pre-empted the kind of regulations California had sought on a state level.
The Justice Department under President Biden dropped its challenge to the state law earlier this month, giving California officials another boost.
The Biden administration also named Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel, a longtime advocate of open internet rules, as acting chairwoman of the FCC. The agency’s new leadership could write new rules restoring some of the Obama-era regulations, but a partisan deadlock in the normally five-seat commission makes such rule-making unlikely in the near term.
Past FCC rules governing broadband providers’ practices have also faced court challenges from opponents, who have argued that federal legislation last passed in 1996 don’t authorize the stronger internet regulations. California’s legislature wrote its rules, providing them a stronger defense to legal challenges like the one dismissed Tuesday.
A spokesman for the trade groups that challenged the law said the coalition hasn’t yet decided on its next steps. The law could go into effect within a month if it isn’t challenged again.
“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 more apparent,” the group said in a statement.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, the law’s author, hailed the decision in a tweet as a boost for “the strongest net neutrality law in the nation.”
“We worked incredibly hard to pass this law, overcoming massive corporate opposition,” he wrote. “California can now fully protect an open internet.”
Write to Drew FitzGerald at [email protected]
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