Lawyer: Verizon should be able to block websites

September 09, 2013

Verizon Communications should be able to block its broadband customers from going to websites that refuse to pay the provider to deliver their traffic, a lawyer for Verizon told an appeals court Monday.Current U.S. Federal Communications Commission rules prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic go beyond the agency's authority granted by the U.S. Congress in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Verizon lawyer Helgi Walker told judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Verizon is appealing FCC net neutrality rules passed in December 2010.The net neutrality rules prevent Verizon from charging websites for bringing traffic to them, Walker told the three judges. "But for these rules, we could be pursuing those types of commercial arrangements," she said. "My client wants freedom to explore that."Congress did not give the FCC the authority to regulate broadband in the same way it regulates so-called common-carrier telephone networks and the FCC itself had long stayed away from broadband regulation before passing the net neutrality rules, Walker said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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