Six companies are taking the fight over the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality to federal court.
The companies — Etsy, Expa, Kickstarter, Automattic, Foursquare, and Shutterstock — filed a petition in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Monday challenging the FCC’s move late last year to roll back the Obama-era Internet regulations.
The companies filed the petition as part of the Coalition for Internet Openness, a nonprofit that wants to advocate for a “legal environment that preserves and extends the openness of the Internet.”
“Etsy is filing this petition on behalf of the 1.9 million creative entrepreneurs who sell goods on our platform and depend on strong net neutrality protections to build their businesses and compete online,” Althea Erickson, Etsy’s head of advocacy and impact, said in a statement. “The courts need to hear from the people who will be harmed the most under the FCC’s unprecedented attack on net neutrality.”
In a party-line vote in December, the FCC repealed the net neutrality rules, which were designed to ensure all content on the Internet is treated equally by Internet service providers. The rules prohibited Internet service providers from blocking, throttling, or interfering with traffic from certain websites.
Many Internet companies slammed the FCC’s roll back of net neutrality and asked the courts to review the agency’s move.
Attorneys general from 21 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in January over the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality.
Members of Congress opposed to the repeal of the Internet rules are also working to undo the FCC’s vote. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution last week to reverse the dismantling of the net neutrality rules. The resolution needs a simple majority to pass, but it faces a significant hurdle to getting a vote in the Republican-led Senate.
