Since back in November when he became President-Elect, Donald Trump has been building up his cabinet, arguably one of the most divisive casts of political characters in America’s history. With the Electoral College having recently made the call to officially put Trump in office, his administration can begin making real moves. One of the first moves that most people predicted Republican FCC staffers would make was putting Net Neutrality under a microscope, likely with the intention of doing away with it in order to help out businesses and allow more job creation. The current rule set aims to keep providers from giving more of a voice on the internet to their own interests while harming others, and part of those rules is known as “enhanced transparency”.
According to Net Neutrality’s guidelines concerning “enhanced transparency,” providers are required to tell subscribers and the public about network technology, maintenance, and performance. Since this rule would obviously make smaller providers look less appealing to the public than their bigger, more resource-rich competitors, a waiver was put in place. Some wanted the waiver to be gone, while others wanted it extended and even expanded. It officially expired recently, but a new set of enhanced transparency rules has yet to take effect, making them unenforceable for now. The Republican commissioners that wrote a letter opposing enhanced transparency have said that they will not stand for any attempts at enforcement against small businesses for the time being.
The pioneer of Net Neutrality, Tom Wheeler, will be stepping down in January. Meanwhile, the presidency of Donald Trump will be officiated. This means that there could not possibly be any better time for anybody opposed to any part of Net Neutrality to make their concerns known and seek support in scrutinizing the standard. Along with their beef with enhanced transparency provisions, the commissioners in question have made it known that they intend to take a close look at net neutrality in general, which some in that camp have said is an unnecessary protection in this day and age, and see if anything needs tweaked or simply done away with. Many corners of the internet are already sounding the alarm bells about a war on net neutrality, but only time will tell if their fears come true.