USA: Legal challenges filed against the FCC’s net neutrality decision

Attorneys general in 21 states across the USA have filed a petition with a federal appeals court in Washington, challenging the decision taken by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reverse the 2015 pro net neutrality order. The petition, signed by attorneys general in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia, describes the FCC’s decision as ‘arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion’. At the same time, similar challenges were filed by Mozilla Corp, the Open Technology Institute, and Free Press. Earlier this month, the Internet Association, representing companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon, announced its intention to intervene in judicial action against the FCC order.