Net neutrality in the United States

In the United States, net neutrality—the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should make no distinctions between different kinds of content on the Internet, and to not discriminate based on such distinctions—has been an issue of contention between end-users and ISPs since the 1990s. With net neutrality, ISPs may not intentionally block, slow down, or charge different rates for specific online content. Without net neutrality, ISPs may prioritize certain types of traffic, meter others, or potentially block specific types of content, while charging consumers different rates for that content. A core issue to net neutrality is how ISPs should be classified under the Communications Act of 1934 as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996: as either Title I "information services" or Title II "common carrier services". The classification determines the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) authority over ISPs: the FCC would have significant ability to regulate ISPs if classified under Title II, but would have little control over them if classified under Title I. Because the Communications Act has not been amended by Congress to account for ISPs, the FCC had taken the authority to designate how ISPs are classified, as affirmed by the Supreme Court in the case National Cable & Telecommunications Ass'n v. Brand X Internet Services (2005), which relied on the judicial principle of the Chevron deference, where the court deferred to administration agencies' interpretation of Congressional mandates. The five member FCC commission changes with each new administration, and no more than three members may be of the same political party, thus the FCC's attitudes and rule-making regarding net neutrality shifted relatively frequently through the 2020s. Generally, under Democratic administrations, the FCC has favored net neutrality, while the agency under Republican leadership eschew the concept. The Supreme Court case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) overturned the Chevron deference, and as a result, the Sixth Circuit ruled in 2025 that the FCC does not have the authority to classify ISPs as Title II services, further ruling that ISPs are Title I information services based on the 1996 amendment. This means net neutrality is no longer mandated at the federal level, and the legality of whether ISPs may act based on differences in Internet traffic is left to the states. Some states, such as California, have implemented their own versions of net neutrality since this decision.