There are 21.9 million Comments on the FCC’s “Reviving Internet Freedom” docket now, sweeping away the four million collected before the 2015 ruling that imposed net neutrality rules. Many filings are clearly from spam bots and form letters, but Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to undo net neutrality rules has gained large attention.
The deadline for first judgments passed on July 17, and the deadline for responses to initial comments was deemed to pass on August 16. But the FCC continued the deadline by two weeks to August 30, partly granting a petition for an eight-week increase from net neutrality advocates.
As is standard, comments must be registered by midnight Eastern time on the date of the deadline. Comments in paper form must be made by 7 pm ET.
Technically, the docket will continue to be open after the commentary deadline. At the very least, you can expect businesses and organizations to make ex parte filings after keeping meetings about net neutrality with FCC administrators or staff. Still, it’s best to get your remarks on the record before the end of the day tomorrow.
Pai has set a huge bar for net neutrality advocates. The number of commentaries in favor of or against net neutrality rules “is not as significant as the substantive criticisms that are in the record,” Pai said last month.
In a Congressional conference, a Democratic lawmaker urged Pai to detail what kind of comments would turn his mind about rolling back net neutrality rules. Pai replied that he could be moved by “economic analysis that shows credible that there’s the foundation investment that has increased dramatically” since the net neutrality laws went into effect. Pai said he also would take testimony seriously if it shows that the overall market would suffer from a net neutrality rollback or that startups and consumers can’t grow without the existing rules.
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