Federal Communications Commission - FCC

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent U.S. government regulatory agency that oversees all communications between U.S. states, and between the U.S. and abroad. It’s headed by a presidentially-appointed, Congressionally confirmed commissioner, who is not supposed to have any financial ties to any of the businesses that the FCC is part of regulating.

The FCC is supposed to be a watchdog for mergers that are a little too big (monopolies aren’t good for market competition, and therefore consumers), cell phone companies, intellectual property rights across radio and other waves...basically, all things communication.

In recent years, the FCC has been in the spotlight for its stance on net neutrality, namely: deciding to do away with it. The FCC says they’re creating “fast lanes” on the internet, which means allowing internet providers like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon the ability to charge websites for using these fast lanes. Which means big boy websites will have to pay these middlemen big bucks to get their sites to you and all consumers the same as before. Which also means the little guys probably won’t be able to afford those price tags. So really, they’re creating a bunch of slow lanes to make the normal lane look fast.

This would change the internet for good. It wouldn’t be a free space anymore in the U.S. Rather, it would only be a pay-to-play space. Plus, the commissioner used to work at Verizon, so...that’s getting some side-eye from people, too.