AAI Says FCC Should Continue to Play Lead Role in Protecting the Open Internet

The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) today submitted a statement for the record to the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial, and Antitrust Law on how best to protect the open internet, also known as network neutrality. The subcommittee held a hearing on June 20, 2014 entitled “Net Neutrality: Is Antitrust Law More Effective Than Regulation in Protecting Consumers and Innovation?” The AAI wrote to the subcommittee to explain that antitrust law, as currently interpreted, would alone be less effective at ensuring net neutrality than a regime of both vigorous antitrust enforcement and regulation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). While antitrust has a critical role to play in the digital realm, modern antitrust law cannot address all the market failures that open internet policy seeks to combat. In light of the current state of antitrust law, FCC regulation should continue to play the lead role in protecting fundamental economic, political, and social values on the internet.