A federal judge ruled Tuesday that California can for the first time enforce its strict net neutrality law, paving the way for the state to ban ISPs from slowing down or blocking access to websites and applications that don’t pay for premium service.
Former Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill in 2018, making California the first state to pass a net neutrality law. Proponents of the open Internet hoped the law would spur Congress and other states to follow suit. The Trump administration was quick to sue for blocking the law, preventing it from taking effect for years while the case was tied in court.
The Biden government dropped that lawsuit earlier this month. But in a separate lawsuit, the telecom industry asked a federal judge to continue to block the law. On Tuesday, John A. Mendez, a US District Court judge, rejected their request, allowing California to enforce the law.
Senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and author of the law, called the ruling “a huge victory for open access to the Internet, our democracy and our economy.”
“The Internet is at the heart of modern life. We should all be able to decide for ourselves where to go on the Internet and how to access information,” said Wiener. “We can’t let big companies make those decisions for us.”
In a joint statement, several telecom industry associations said they will review the judge’s decision “before deciding on the next steps.” They urged Congress to establish net neutrality rules for the country instead of relying on states to come up with regulations themselves.
“A state-by-state approach to internet regulation will confuse consumers and deter innovation, just as the importance of broadband has never been more apparent to all,” said the statement from the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, ACA Connects, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and USTelecom.
California law was boosted by the Federal Communications Commission decision in 2017 to repeal net neutrality rules that applied nationwide. The telecom industry has fought hard against the bill, arguing that it would discourage companies from investing in faster internet speeds.
But advocates say that without the rules, it would make it easy for ISPs to benefit their own services by making it more difficult for customers to access their competitors’ websites and apps.
The law aims to prohibit internet providers from slowing down customer data flows based on the content they view. It also prevents providers from speeding up access to websites willing to pay extra for special treatment.
“An ISP’s ability to block, slow down or speed up content based on a user’s ability to pay for service detracts from the idea of a competitive market and the overt transmission of information at the core of our digital and connected world., ”said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.