Ajit Pai and his telecom overlords love to say that the consumer protections being exposed by rolling back the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Obama-era net neutrality rules will be covered by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Companies like AT&T and Verizon use this argument as well. There is a consistency to this argument, supported by AT&T’s pay-to-play tactics. But as Techdirt reports, what is not consistent is the fact that AT&T is spending money and lobbying to take away whatever is left of the FTC’s authority in policing big telecoms on behalf of the American public.
But while ISP lobbyists are claiming that neutering the FCC is a great idea because the FTC will fill the void, they consistently "forget" to mention that AT&T has been busy in court trying to gut FTC authority over ISPs entirely. You'd think that's kind of important to mention, but large ISP mouthpieces are understandably busy these days, so perhaps it just got lost in the lobbyist paperwork shuffle.
AT&T's legal gambit began when the FTC sued AT&T back in 2014 for lying to customers about the company's throttling practices. You'll recall that AT&T had been waging a not-so-subtle war on unlimited data users as it tried to drive them to more expensive, metered plans. Amusingly, AT&T lawyers tried to argue in court that the company's "common carrier" status -- the same status it has fought viciously against on the net neutrality front -- exempted it from FTC authority almost entirely under Section 5 of the FTC Act. As we noted at the time, it was a very clever Schrodinger-esque tap dance.
In March, a federal judge ruled in favor of the FTC in their case against AT&T; but AT&T has said they will appeal.