The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a much-anticipated decision on California's state "net-neutrality" law, which reimposes the net-neutrality requirements the FCC removed back in 2018. ACA Connects v. Bonta, No. 21-15430 (9th Cir., Jan. 28, 20222). The California law is viewed as a template for other states interested in that sort of legislation, and this case served as the lead trial balloon as industry associations challenged the statute on preemption grounds.
As quick background, in 2015 the FCC established net-neutrality rules that prohibited broadband internet service providers from blocking access to websites, slowing certain customers' internet access ("throttling"), or prioritizing access to some websites over others. But in 2018 the FCC reversed itself and removed those rules (relying instead on a "transparency" requirement) by reclassifying broadband internet service as an "information service" under Title I of the federal Communications Act, rather than a "telecommunications" service under Title II of that Act. The purpose in switching to Title I was to subject broadband internet service to only the light-touch regulation that applies to Title I services. The FCC also expressly preempted state laws that were inconsistent with its deregulatory approach, or that would effectively reimpose the net-neutrality rules it repealed. The D.C. Circuit upheld the FCC's...
