Sen. Ted Cruz blasted President Obama Monday over his support for “net neutrality,” a concept the Texas Republican termed “the biggest regulatory threat to the Internet” right now,
according to the Daily Caller.
Earlier Monday, Obama said he backed net neutrality and suggested that the Federal Communications Commission closely regulate the Internet, treating it as a public utility similar to telephone service. The president said federal regulation is necessary to ensure that Internet service providers cannot “pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas.”
Critics say that net neutrality would transfer from private service providers to government regulators at the FCC authority to decide Internet service speeds and consumer prices, and even political content,
reported Forbes.
Cruz wrote on Facebook that the regulatory apparatus necessary to enforce net neutrality would stifle innovation and growth.
“In short, net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet. It puts the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service, and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities, and higher prices for consumers,” Cruz said.
“The Internet should not operate at the speed of government,” he added.
Other deregulation advocates warned that Obama’s approach could encourage repressive regimes to assert more control over the Internet within their borders.
Obama’s position “discredits U.S. efforts to prevent countries like Russia and China from destroying the current international multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance and replacing it with government regulatory control, “ former Sen. John Sununu and former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., honorary co-chairs of Broadband for America, said in a statement on Monday.
“It is ironic that the president made his announcement while in China, which has long sought greater government control over the Internet and surely will be encouraged by the president’s statement,” they added.
Sununu was a Republican senator from New Hampshire. Ford was a Democrat congressman from Tennessee.
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