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Title: Net Neutrality Advocates Won't Appeal Loss

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/08/08/22223...

Advocacy groups have decided not to appeal a federal court ruling striking
down Biden-era net neutrality rules, citing the FCC's current Republican
majority and a Supreme Court they view as hostile to the issue. Instead, they
plan to push for open internet protections through Congress, state laws, and
future court cases, while noting California's net neutrality law remains in
effect. Ars Technica reports: "Trump's election flipped the FCC majority back
to ideologues who've always taken the broadband industry's side on this
crucial issue. And the justices making up the current Supreme Court majority
have shown hostility toward sound legal reasoning on this precise question
and a host of other topics too," said Matt Wood, VP of policy and general
counsel at Free Press. [...] "The 6th Circuit's decision earlier this year
was spectacularly wrong, and the protections it struck down are extremely
important. But rather than attempting to overcome an agency that changed
hands -- and a Supreme Court majority that cares very little about the rule
of law -- we'll keep fighting for Internet affordability and openness in
Congress, state legislatures and other court proceedings nationwide," Wood
said. Besides Free Press, groups announcing that they won't appeal are the
Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, New America's Open Technology
Institute, and Public Knowledge. "Though the 6th Circuit erred egregiously in
its decision to overturn the FCC's 2024 Open Internet order, there are other
ways we can advance our fight for consumer protections and ISP accountability
than petitioning the Supreme Court to review this case -- and, given the
current legal landscape, we believe our efforts will be more effective if
focused on those alternatives," said Raza Panjwani, senior policy counsel at
the Open Technology Institute. Net neutrality could still reach the Supreme
Court in another case. Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior counselor of the Benton
Institute for Broadband & Society, said that "the 6th Circuit decision
makes bad policy as well as bad law. Because it is at odds with the holdings
of two other circuits, we expect to take the issue to the Supreme Court in a
future case."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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