Court says FCC cannot enforce net neutrality

Video streaming websites, including Netflix and YouTube, could become more difficult to access — “House of Cards” premiere included.

Popular streaming sites take up a lot of bandwidth and are the biggest strain on Internet providers.

But now, Internet service providers, or ISPs, such as Verizon and Time Warner Cable, could charge consumers an extra fee or significantly reduce buffering speed to streaming sites that do not pay for preferential treatment.

Open internet policies, also known as net neutrality, force all Internet content to be treated equally.

But in January, a federal court ruled against the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to regulate ISPs to maintain net neutrality.

In a Jan. 31 Google Hangout, President Barack Obama said he cares deeply about net neutrality.

The FCC wants to appeal the ruling or create new rules to continue enforcing net neutrality, Obama said.

A bill has been introduced to Congress that would temporarily reinstate net neutrality regulations.

Cathy Packer, a UNC media law professor, said a possible solution for the FCC is to reclassify the Internet from an information to a telecommunication service.

Telecommunication services, such as telephones, cannot be subjected to network discrimination, according to the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

“If you want to talk dirty, sell drugs or criticize Republicans, the telephone company cannot interfere with that,” Packer said. “They can just provide the phone.”

April Glaser, an activist for the digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said consumers can act as watchdogs for violations of net neutrality, like slower Internet speeds and blocked websites.

“If we have strong public monitoring and documentation of ISPs determining what we can or cannot see online, then we can use it to launch campaigns against ISPs and mount consumer pressure against them,” Glaser said.

Michael Barker, assistant vice chancellor for Research Computing and Learning Technologies with Information Technology Services, said UNC is not considered an ISP, and the University will still be able to regulate Internet content.

“We do not see our ability to achieve the University’s (academic) mission being impacted by the federal court decision,” Barker said.

Internet users are subject to terms and conditions when accessing the Internet provided by universities.

In January, Yale University blocked a student-designed course catalog site that included numerical professor ratings alongside the course description. Yale later apologized for blocking the website, but maintained it was within its rights to do so.

Within the last year, UNC has blocked access to ConnectCarolina 2.0, alertcarolina.com and bevii.com from its campus network. Bevii.com is no longer blocked.

Stan Waddell, chief technology officer at ITS, said websites are only blocked if they pose a network security risk.

ConnectCarolina 2.0 had used students’ Onyens and passwords — a violation of the University’s information security and password policies.

“We pretty much had an obligation to block the website and inform students that their information was at risk and had to be changed,” Waddell said.

The creator of ConnectCarolina 2.0, Winston Howes, said security is the only acceptable reason for the Internet to be censored or restricted.

“I was on the phone with ITS for about a month after the site got blocked because they wanted to make sure their users were secure and that I didn’t violate any University policy by taking passwords or anything,” he said.

And Barker said the University is allowed to monitor an individual’s online activity in certain circumstances, like an ongoing criminal process or a known risk to safety.

Waddell said an intrusion prevention system prevents hacks and malware from entering the network.

“It is an automated process,” Waddell said. “There is no man at the computer like in ‘The Matrix.’”

state@dailytarheel.com