Marvin Ammori

“One goal of law - as we learn in law school from the first day of contracts - is to deter bad behavior.”

“Over the course of a year - from January 2014 to March 2015 - millions of Americans, hundreds of businesses, and dozens of policymakers weighed in at the Federal Communications Commission in favor of net neutrality.”

“Net neutrality sounds wonky and technical but is actually quite simple. It would keep the Internet as it has always been - cable and phone companies would remain mere gateways to all sites, rather than gatekeepers determining where users can go and what innovators can offer them.”

“From search and books to online TV and operating systems, antitrust affects our daily digital lives in more ways than we think.”

“The user, not the ISP, should be the kingmaker of apps.”

“The neutral and level playing field provided by permissionless innovation has empowered all of us with the freedom to express ourselves and innovate online without having to seek the permission of a remote telecom executive.”

“Charter hired me - which, to be honest, took some humility on its part, since I have helped lead public campaigns against cable companies like Charter - to advise it in crafting its commitment to network neutrality.”

“The current FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, is highly regarded, but some distrust him because he is the former head lobbyist of both the cable and wireless phone industries. He's also made some statements suggesting he doesn't understand or opposes network neutrality.”

“'Network neutrality' is sometimes called 'Internet freedom' or 'Internet openness' and is a legal principle that would forbid cable and phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast from blocking some websites or providing special priority to others.”

“The FCC should obviously not propose bad rules that will be struck down; it should propose good rules that will be upheld.”

“The Internet freedom issue we need to focus on is network neutrality.”

“In 2011, mobile data traffic in the United States was eight times the size of the entire global Internet in 2000. That's traffic.”

“I have worked on open Internet, speech, and entrepreneurship issues for years.”

“If a company is not a monopoly, then the law assumes market competition can restrain the company's actions. No problem. If a monopoly exists, but the monopoly does not engage in acts designed to destroy competition, then we can assume that it earned and is keeping its monopoly the pro-consumer way: by out-innovating its competitors.”

“I have tried to help build a framework that recaptures the First Amendment as a principle to empower all Americans, politically and personally, through access to plentiful, diverse communications spaces.”

“In the early 1990s, Americans used their home phone lines to connect their desktop computers to the Internet via ISPs like AOL, Earthlink, or Netzero. Back then, the ISPs didn't have cost-effective technology to select particular sites for blocking or privileging.”

“Congress created a safe harbor for defamation in 1996 and for copyright in 1998. Both safe harbors were designed to ensure that the Internet would remain a participatory medium of speech.”

“Default choices often remain unchanged for no reason other than being the default, either because of this lack of information or humans' status quo bias.”

“Broadband companies can have great success offering access to the unfettered Internet.”

“Net neutrality is the right thing for our democracy, economy, and global competitiveness. And Americans support an open Internet.”