14 DAY TRIAL // Net neutrality may once more be in danger if President Donald Trump goes through with naming Ajit Pai as head of the Federal Communications Commission.
While net neutrality was something that former President Barack wanted to guarantee during his time in the office, providing strong legal protections, things may change drastically under Trump.
The rules put in place in previous years in order to protect net neutrality have been opposed time and time again by telecommunication giants such as Comcast and Verizon, who chose to oppose Obama and the FCC every step of the way simply because these rules sought to create a level playing field for all Internet companies.
Politico reports that Trump plans to name Ajit Pai as the leader of the FCC. Pai is a known Republican, a member of the FCC since 2012, which means the new president's pick wouldn’t be so bad since Pai would know how to lead the FCC considering he has been a member for so many years. However, he has been known to oppose many of his colleague's plans and regulations, particularly net neutrality.
Pai has spoken against net neutrality regulations before
In fact, just last month he made sure to say just how happy he had been at his job, but how he would have done things differently. Pai said there were many “outdated and unnecessary” regulations that needed to be removed, especially those that are “holding back investment, innovation, and job creation.”
While he does not name net neutrality outright in this particular speech, it is quite likely that it will end up on Pai’s hit list since he is not one of its supporters and he has spoken about reforming the laws before.
This is quite concerning because huge ISPs such as Comcast could go ahead and block access to certain websites, force customers to pay more to reach those high volume websites they are seeking and so on, which is something they have done in the past.
While we would be more than happy to say that these are just speculations regarding what he would do once he is head of the FCC, things are not just speculations. Pai spent most of his career in public service with the DOJ, but he has also worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee and the FCC. He has also been involved with the communications industry as a lawyer for Verizon and representing telecommunications clients at another firm.