Net neutrality was back, until it wasn’t - The Verge

# Net neutrality was back, until it wasn’t For eight months this year, U.S. internet users operated under federal guardrails barring internet service providers from blocking lawful content, throttling connection speeds, or selling priority “fast lane” access to deep-pocketed content companies. That protection evaporated on December 29, 2025, when a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s March 2025 order restoring federal net neutrality rules, undoing the most significant federal open internet policy in seven years. The ruling is the latest, crushing blow to a 15-year regulatory war over who gets to set the rules for the U.S. internet. The modern fight traces to 2015, when a Democratic-majority FCC voted to classify broadband internet as a Title II common carrier service under the 1934 Communications Act, a designation that gave the commission explicit authority to ban the abusive ISP practices net neutrality advocates had long warned would strangle small startups, raise costs for consumers, and erode the open internet’s role as a platform for free expression and innovation. The 2015 order explicitly prohibited ISPs from slowing or blocking legal content, and from prioritizing content from companies that paid extra fees for faster delivery. That framework was dismantled in 2017, when a Republican-led FCC under then-chairman Ajit Pai voted to reclassify broadband as a lighter-touch “information service,” exempting ISPs from common carrier rules entirely. The 2017 repeal took effect in 2018, sparking a wave of state-level action: more than 30 states passed their own net neutrality protections in the repeal’s wake, with California’s 2018 statute emerging as the most robust, widely enforced state-level guardrail. Legal challenges to both the 2015 and 2017 orders dragged through the courts for years, with the D.C. Circuit upholding the 2017 repeal in 2019. The 2025 federal restoration came after the 2024 elections delivered a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate and a split House of Representatives, allowing the newly constituted FCC to vote 3-2 along party lines to reinstate the 2015 Title II classification. Consumer advocacy groups, major tech firms, and startup organizations hailed the move as a critical step to protect small businesses and ensure equal access to online content, while ISP trade groups argued the rules would stifle broadband investment, particularly in rural and low-income areas with limited infrastructure. In its December 2025 ruling, the D.C. Circuit panel sided 2-1 with the ISP plaintiffs, ruling that the FCC lacked statutory authority to classify broadband as a Title II common carrier service, as the Communications Act’s mid-20th century language does not explicitly extend common carrier designations to internet service. The decision leaves federal net neutrality rules null and void, returning the U.S. to a fragmented patchwork of state-level protections that vary wildly by region, leaving millions of users in states without their own net neutrality laws with no federal recourse against ISP abuse. The ruling has reignited long-standing calls for Congress to pass a permanent federal net neutrality law that would settle the regulatory question once and for all, but legislative efforts to pass such a measure have stalled repeatedly over the past decade amid deep partisan gridlock. The FCC has not yet announced whether it will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, though legal analysts note the court’s 6-3 conservative majority has previously signaled skepticism toward expansive interpretations of the FCC’s regulatory authority over broadband. For now, ISPs operating in states without their own net neutrality laws face no federal restrictions on content blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization – a reality consumer advocates warn could lead to higher monthly costs for streaming services, slower speeds for independent content creators and small news outlets, and reduced competition in the online marketplace, as smaller players are priced out of reaching audiences.