Courthouse Steps: FCC v. AT&T

On February 26, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Federal Trade Commission in a unanimous en banc decision. This long-awaited decision resolved the FTC’s jurisdiction over AT&T (or other companies with common carrier services) for non-common carrier activities. The underlying lawsuit involves AT&T’s alleged practice of slowing down (or throttling) a subscriber’s data speed once they reached a certain amount of data use in a given billing cycle – even if that subscriber had an unlimited data plan. In some ways, the FTC’s win restores what most legal observers thought was the status quo. But given the FTC’s evolving role in protecting customers and competition online, the decision has implications for the ongoing net neutrality debate. Join us as FTC Acting Chief Technologist Neil Chilson and Nebraska College of Law Professor Gus Hurwitz discuss the decision and its impact.

Featuring:

Neil Chilson, Acting Chief Technologist, Federal Trade Commission

Justin (Gus) Hurwitz, Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director of Space, Cyber, and Telecom Law Program, University of Nebraska College of Law

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