GOP looks to antitrust law to preserve net neutrality

“This committee has long been concerned, on a bipartisan basis, about allegations and fears that the incumbent telephone and cable companies who provide a majority of this country’s Internet service could abuse their power in the Internet service market to discriminate against certain websites, content, or platforms, to anticompetitive effect,” he said during a hearing on Tuesday.

Goodlatte said tweaks to competition law might better enable antitrust authorities to play a role in Internet traffic. He introduced a bill to do so over a decade ago with former Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.); Goodlatte referred to it on Tuesday as “the first net-neutrality bill.”

Goodlatte did not see FCC regulations as a way to prevent anticompetitive behavior, criticizing the FCC’s order as “morass of bureaucratic rules.”

“I believe that the right approach is a light touch that focuses on punishing anticompetitive behavior, enforcing antitrust laws, and even potentially tweaking those laws to ensure that they still operate as intended in the digital age,” he said. 

Testifying before the panel, Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said both antitrust and FCC rules are necessary to preserve the open Internet. She said net-neutrality proponents want to ensure “the next Google, the next Twitter, the next Netflix” are able to compete.

Democrats on the committee expressed the same view. 

“I think the case could be made for the FCC becoming even stronger,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), ranking member of the full committee.