Amicus Brief filed in support of respondent in Mozilla v. FCC, February 1, 2019
My brief provides academic support to challenge the purported notion of the “Virtuous Circle” is responsible for internet innovation and that net neutrality rules are necessary to preserve it
The 2015 Title II Order’s conception of a rarefied “virtuous circle” is an invented notion, unsupported by the most cited works of the academic literature of innovation. Nor does that literature support the Title II Order’s prophylactic price and data controls to stimulate internet innovation. Moreover, an empirical investigation of net neutrality policies worldwide demonstrates that countries with hard bright line rules do not exhibit increased innovation at the edge. On the contrary, increased edge innovation is seen in countries with soft net neutrality rules (e.g., Sweden, Norway, Denmark, South Korea) and in countries with no rules at all. Acknowledging that there is no academic or empirical support of the virtuous circle theory to justify regulating broadband internet access service (“BIAS”) as a utility service, or the bright line rules adopted in the Title II Order, the Federal Communications Commission was correct to restore the proven policy approach employed from 1996 to 2015 in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order (“RIF Order”).
Read the court decision in Mozilla Corp. v. FCC, 940 F. 3d 1 (D.C. Cir., 2019).