Susan P Crawford, Columnist

Did the Government Just Break the Internet?

January 15, 2014 at 4:21 PM UTC

Susan Crawford, the John A. Reilly visiting professor in intellectual property at Harvard Law School, is the author of "Captive Audience." Her book "The Responsive City," with co-author Stephen Goldsmith, will be published in September. In 2009, Susan Crawford served as special assistant to President Barack Obama for science, technology, and innovation policy. She is a former law partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale). She is the founder of OneWeb Day, a global Earth Day for the Internet held each Sept. 22. She earned a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, and a law degree from Yale University.

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Ten years ago, the Federal Communications Commission wandered away from 100 years of communications history, labeling high-speed Internet access services as “unregulated.” Theoretically, competition would take the place of any regulation.

So, even though high-speed Internet access is the modern-day equivalent of the telephone -- basic to everything we do in life -- providers have been treated not as “common carriers” but as private businesses.