On Monday, President Barack Obama enlisted the full power of his administration to place stricter policies of net neutrality into action, according to The New York Times.
The news of his battle broke on Monday morning when Obama posted a proposal online as he traveled to Asia. This is the most direct effort by Obama to influence the debate about the future of the internet as we know it.
Obama used the White House website to post a statement, including a video, that urged the Federal Communications Commission to accept the strictest rules of net neutrality. The statement also urged the FCC to view consumer broadband as a public utility.
"We cannot allow Internet service providers to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas," Obama wrote in his statement.
The FCC is not subject to the direct authority of the president since it is an independent agency. Despite this, Obama is sending his opinions to the agency, along with 3.7 million others, who are in favor of an open internet where broadband companies cannot pick which content reaches customers faster than others.
According to his statement, the FCC should follow a couple of main principles: no website should be blocked by an ISP (internet service provider); there should be no content sped up or slowed down on purpose; there should be no transparency about where traffic is sent; and there should be no paid deals for providing speed advantages to some providers over others.
"Simply put: No service should be stuck in a 'slow lane' because it does not pay a fee," Obama wrote in his statement. "That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet's growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect."
