NHMC Says FCC Appears Unconcerned About 54,000 Consumer Open Internet Complaints
The FCC seems unfazed by more than 50,000 consumer open internet complaints as it proposes to undo Title II net neutrality regulation under the Communications Act, said Carmen Scurato, National Hispanic Media Coalition director-policy and legal affairs. "Consumers are complaining…
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their ISPs are not being neutral conduits to the internet, and that's really at the heart of net neutrality," she said Friday, a day after the commission posted about 70,000 pages of complaints and related documents. The FCC responded to NHMC requests for access to 47,000 open internet complaints under the Freedom of Information Act and for the agency to post the documents publicly (see 1709060029). A spokeswoman said the commission Thursday "produced the final batch of documents to complete its response" to NHMC's FOIA request. "FCC staff dedicated more than 1,000 hours to redacting consumers’ personal and sensitive information. The FCC is committed to transparency and openness, and went above and beyond the requirements of FOIA,” she said. Scurato said NHMC hasn't had time to fully analyze all the documents, but she believes the FCC received almost 54,000 net neutrality complaints. She was surprised the commission included language that said: "These documents represent information provided by the public that has not been verified by the FCC." The disclaimer shows regulators "haven't verified these complaints and whether consumers have been harmed," she said. "They haven't taken the time to analyze all the evidence that is critical to the net neutrality proceeding, and yet the NPRM suggests there's an absence of consumer harm." Scurato said "a lot of materials" are still missing. NHMC understands there were 18,000 carrier responses, she said, but the regulator posted only 823 pages. NHMC also understands the FCC hasn't had an open internet ombudsman to respond to complaints since January, and the agency has hardly responded to complaints since then, she said. Chairman Ajit Pai declined to comment on the complaints or their significance, after a speech to the Center for Democracy & Technology (see 1709150062).