California has just passed net neutrality regulations into state law after bill SB-822 passed both the State Assembly and the Senate on August 31.
California’s Democratic Governor Jerry Brown has until September 30 to sign the bill into law.
Restoring Net Neutrality after Federal repeal
The law aims to restore Net Neutrality in California after it was repealed on a federal level by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) earlier this year.
If signed, the bill will stop Internet service providers (ISPs) from throttling speeds to certain websites and prioritizing sites that paid more for faster access, and instead, mandate that all web traffic is treated equally.
Hailed by its primary sponsor Senator Scott Wiener as “the strongest net neutrality standards in the nation” California’s bill means that the entire west coast will now benefit from net neutrality at the state level.
More states to adopt net neutrality?
California’s ruling is significant as it the most populous state in the U.S., as well as the home of tech hubs like Silicon Valley. The decision to pass the bill has set a precedent for 27 cities, including Chicago, Boston, and Houston who have backed a lawsuit against the FCC’s repeal of Net Neutrality.
The fight for Net Neutrality continues. If you want to support net neutrality in your city, Fight for the Future’s Battle for the Net has resources and provides channels for you to contact your congressional representatives.
Comments
Kind of depends which sites paid more for LESS restriction AND which sites or services are we talking about here? Net neutrality could cause a massive burden or hinderance to some core elements of free speech which are – unsavory and who should probably be relegated to the lower traffic bandwidths. ISPs should decide how to run their services and for who. They get enough flack for not policing it. This is the same complaint against the educational system – teachers provide the service but now government decides the curriculum and who for.
Just what we need, more government regulation. But it is California. Expect any less?
Seeing as how you’re on a VPN website, I assume privacy is important to you. If it is, Net Neutrality should also be important to you! Do you really want ISPs and other companies not only tracking your data quite liberally, but also forcing you to certain pages/products/services other than those you wished or wish to see/visit? To block and/or limit what services are available to you by forcing you to use their own, competitor services instead? Net neutrality forces the internet to be free and open, free from manipulation. As someone on the ExpressVPN blog I’m quite surprised that you are opposed to it.
“Net Neutrality” essentially states that all data must be treated equally. Yet censorship on the Web is rising dramatically, against Conservatives by a whole host of left-leaning, big-name tech sites. The flow of data is fundamental to a free and open Internet. Yet the flow of free thought is even more fundamental to the process of having a healthy society. This is an extremely hypocritical situation! Net Neutrality is utterly impossible so long as certain mindsets are blocked.