Pryor Cashman Represents Former FCC Technologists in Fight to Restore Net Neutrality
In the fight to restore the net neutrality (Open Internet) rules that were repealed by the Federal Communications Commission in 2018, Pryor Cashman is representing two of the FCC’s former Chief Technologists who were opposed to the repeal.
In 2015, the FCC classified Broadband Internet Access Service (BIAS) as a telecommunications service and implemented what we know as the net neutrality policy. The FCC reversed course in 2018 and re-classified BIAS as an information service and repealed the net neutrality rules.
Open-source software company Mozilla has challenged the agency’s action, which former Technologists Scott Jordan and Jon Peha have supported by filing an amicus brief in the court. Represented pro bono by Thomas Vidal, a partner in Pryor Cashman’s Technology and Intellectual Property Groups, Jordan and Peha argue that the technical bases upon which the FCC re-classified BIAS were flawed and do not support the agency’s conclusions.
The full amicus brief can be viewed here.
Additional briefing by the FCC and other non-government respondents are due in August 2018; Mozilla and the other petitioners are expected to file their reply briefs in mid-November.
