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The FCC should use Communications Act Section 706...

The FCC should use Communications Act Section 706 to deal with open Internet rules, but should make improvements in the section’s complaint process, representatives of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council told an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Aug. 22,…

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said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1p73QAh) posted Tuesday in docket 14-28. MMTC urged the agency to create a customer-friendly complaint process modeled after one used in connection with the Civil Rights Act, in which the commission could do an initial screening of complaints and if it finds probable cause, begin expedited enforcement or mediation. Representing MMTC were David Honig, president; Nicol Turner-Lee, vice president; Jacqueline Clary, senior counsel, and Maria Lesinski, law clerk. Meanwhile, the “soundest, clearest path forward for strong open Internet protections” is through reclassifying broadband as a Title II service, with appropriate forbearance, said Sarah Morris, senior policy counsel for New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute. That’s what she told members of the FCC general counsel’s office in a phone call Aug. 21, said an ex parte notice (http://bit.ly/1q1PXZ7) posted in the docket Tuesday. Other parties like Mozilla are proposing alternative approaches, which would rely on creating new definitions and new relationships among ISPs, Internet users and what Mozilla terms “remote hosts,” OTI said. That would be “legally riskier than straightforward reclassification,” Morris said. The agency should “refrain from alternative approaches ... that are unduly complicated or legally risky."