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In the United States, net neutrality—the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should make no distinctions between different kinds of content on the Internet, and to not discriminate based on such distinctions—has been an issue of contention between end-users and ISPs since the 1990s.[1][2][3] With net neutrality, ISPs may not intentionally block, slow down, or charge different rates for specific online content.[4] Without net neutrality, ISPs may prioritize certain types of traffic, meter others, or potentially block specific types of content, while charging consumers different rates for that content.[5]
A core issue to net neutrality is how ISPs should be classified under the Communications Act of 1934 as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996: as either Title I "information services" or Title II "common carrier services". The classification determines the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) authority over ISPs: the FCC would have significant ability to regulate ISPs if classified as common carriers, but would have little control over them if classified as information services. Because the Communications Act has not been amended by Congress to account for ISPs, the FCC has the authority to designate how ISPs are classified, as affirmed by the Supreme Court in the case National Cable & Telecommunications Ass'n v. Brand X Internet Services (2005), in addition to choosing what regulations to set on common carriers. The five member FCC commission changes with each new administration, and no more than three members may be of the same political party, thus the FCC's attitudes and rule-making regarding net neutrality shifts relatively frequently.
In the early 2000s, the FCC adopted a position that ISPs were Title I information services, and proposed net neutrality principles via the FCC Open Internet Order 2010. Courts ruled in Comcast v. FCC (2010) and Verizon v. FCC (2014) that the FCC was not authorized to enforce these net neutrality principles on Title I information services. Under FCC chair Tom Wheeler, the FCC voted in the 2015 FCC open order to categorize ISPs as Title II common carriers and thus subject to net neutrality principles, which was upheld after a legal challenge raised by the ISP industry in United States Telecom Ass'n v. FCC in 2016.
During the Trump administration, in 2017, the FCC reverted to handling ISPs as Title I information services with some court-mandated leeway being given to state-level legislation. In July 2021, President Joe Biden called for the FCC to undo some of these changes. In April 2024, the FCC voted 3-2 to restore net neutrality rules and regulation of Internet service providers.[6][7][8] In August 2024 a Federal court again blocked net neutrality rules.[9]