Free Press Seeks Broad FCC ISP Disclosure Requirements
The FCC should begin a rulemaking that would force Internet service providers to report in detail on ways they monitor or interfere with “any level of communication by end users to access or share lawful content and applications on the Internet,” Free Press said in a filing. It came about two months after the FCC released an order sanctioning Comcast for the way it manages its network (CD Aug 21 p2). “Any service provider that wants to manipulate the connection between Internet users and Internet content has an obligation to disclose what it’s doing,” Policy Director Ben Scott said in a news release.
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“Without industry-wide transparency, Internet users are likely to blame service disruptions on their computers or themselves, rather than where it belongs -- on their ISP,” Scott said. Free Press cited concerns about ISP ad techniques that use Web activity data to target customers with ads they're more likely to respond to.
The FCC has ancillary jurisdiction to require such transparency of ISPs, Free Press said. That authority stems from sections 230 and 706 of the Communications Act, it said. Unlike the commission’s order against Comcast, which laid out a case-by-case framework for adjudicating network management problems, the FCC should require industry-wide disclosure, regardless of access technology, Free Press said. “Strong starting points for an industry-wide disclosure policy have already been offered by large carriers such as Comcast and AT&T,” Free Press said, citing their recent filings with the commission. When AT&T revised its terms of service last month, the company said the changes would give customers clear information about its capabilities and limitations that might affect service performance.
The disclosures would enhance broadband services market competition, Free Press said. Customers could make informed decision about which provider to use, spurring ISPs to invest in their infrastructure, it said. Beyond disclosures about network management and monitoring activity, the FCC should require ISPs to describe the extent to which Internet access service shares network resources with other services, Free Press said: “All providers should disclose sufficient infrastructure information to enable consumers to determine if congestion is the result of massive overloading of the network by the provider to avoid the expense of infrastructure investment.” That would include making ISPs show the number of users on a shared Internet connection, the total upload and download capacity of the connection, the amount of spectrum on the network devoted to broadband versus the amount available to all services, the times when network congestion is at its peak and the “peak unitization of each link in the network during times of congestion,” Free Press said.
The Free Press proposal may be too detailed and technical for average consumers to put to practical use, a source at an ISP said. “That kind of detail can only invite bad actors to use it,” the person said. “It gives people a road map to bad behavior online.” The proposal neglects to include similar disclosure requirements for applications providers, the source said: “All sectors of the Internet industry, including app providers, need to be transparent.” - - Josh Wein