Being an online marketer, it is essential to know what is happening to the Internet and the kind of regulations being put on the service. Last week, the FTC voted to discard net neutrality rules that prevented broadband providers from slowing sites or demanding payments from them for fast delivery. This will positively affect the U.S. consumers. To help everyone know what net neutrality is, HubSpot columnist Amanda Zantal-Wiener has answered the following five questions. What is net neutrality? What is Title II? What are the arguments for net neutrality? What are the arguments against net neutrality? Is... [...]

Amy Schatz says, “Two weeks after the Federal Communications Commission adopted controversial new net neutrality rules for Internet lines, the agency finally released the text to the public Thursday morning. The release promptly caused the FCC’s famously delicate website to crash, as advocates, lawyers and opponents rushed to download the 400 pages of rules. It was soon back up, however, just in time for Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai to post new summaries explaining why he hates the new rules and why they will be thrown out in an inevitable legal challenge”. FCC Finally... [...]

Adriana Lee says, “A landmark vote Thursday morning by the Federal Communications Commission ruled in favor of upholding net neutrality. In other words, Internet providers will not be permitted to slow, block or prioritize online traffic in exchange for fees. And they are not too happy about this. “The action that we take today is an irrefutable reflection of the principle that no one, whether government or corporate, should control free and open access to the internet,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said regarding the decision, which will, for the first time, apply net neutrality protections... [...]

Mashable team says, “The FCC on Thursday voted to enact strict regulation on companies that connect people to the Internet. The regulation will prevent those companies from striking deals that give preferential treatment to content providers. For example, under these rules Netflix can’t pay Comcast for faster access to customers — and Comcast can’t force Netflix to do so.“. Net neutrality wins Mashable  [...]

Amy Schatz says, “Activists on both sides of the nasty political fight over new rules for Internet lines suited up for one last skirmish Wednesday as Federal Communications Commission officials made final tweaks to a plan expected to be approved Thursday. Irritated House Republicans held the latest in a series of hearings Wednesday morning to complain about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal, which would re-regulate Internet lines under rules written for phone networks to give the FCC clear authority to be an Internet traffic cop. A separate hearing — on whether the White House inappropriately... [...]

Amy Schatz says, “Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler officially proposed tough new rules for Internet lines Wednesday, regulations he said would prohibit wired and wireless broadband providers from “paid prioritization and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services.” The long-awaited proposal represents an about-face for Wheeler. He had previously proposed weaker rules, which were widely panned by net neutrality advocates, Internet companies and Democratic politicians — including President Obama — who wanted the agency to take more definitive... [...]

Adriana Lee says, “Net neutrality—the principle that no Internet provider can pick and choose which traffic to carry—took a beating just over a year ago when Verizon successfully sued to overturn the FCC’s “Open Internet” rules. Now the FCC is ready to strike back with a vengeance. In a Wired op-ed, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler outlined his plan to enforce net neutrality by relying on some of the agency’s oldest and most robust authority—Title II of the Telecommunications Act— to categorize Internet service providers as “common carriers” akin to your... [...]

Jason Abbruzzese says, “Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, announced Wednesday that the agency will vote on rules to reclassify how broadband Internet is regulated. Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon had warned that such a shift could do serious damage to their businesses. Maybe not so much. Following the release of the plan, the stocks of several Internet service providers shot up. Others barely budged”. This chart shows why the new net neutrality proposal might just work Mashable  [...]

In a recent article. The Right Way to Fix the Internet, George Anders reports on innovative internet pricing approaches developed by Mung Chiang, a professor of electrical engineering at Princeton. Chaing suggested following the practice of some electric utilities of offering “off-peak” pricing. The result would be that people could choose when they downloaded large files, etc., and as a result could reduce their costs if they limited their work to times when the ISP didn’t have a heavy load. This has a lot of merits, both by avoiding expense for the ISP and providing cost savings... [...]

Helen A. S. Popkin says, “Good news, everybody who meant to share their feelings about the latest net neutrality proposal from the feds, but just never found the time! The 700,000-plus comments pouring in from your fellow lollygaggers and sundry netizens who perhaps had more stuff to say crashed the FCC’s quaint old-timey infrastructure, and now the deadline’s been extended. “Not surprisingly, we have seen an overwhelming surge in traffic in our website that is making it difficult for many people to file comments through our Electronic Filing System,” the FCC said in a statement“. FCC’s... [...]