Victor Luckerson

The fight for municipal broadband has been a quiet drama unfolding across dozens of cities nationwide in recent years. In addition to Colorado, around 20 states have legislation on the books curtailing the construction of city-owned broadband networks, which threaten the dominance of corporate Internet service providers. But a growing number of communities like Fort Collins (CO) are pushing back against these laws. Their attempts could take on added urgency because of efforts at the federal level to rework how the internet is governed.

[Commentary] If Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai does try to unwind network neutrality, which has already been upheld in court, it would be a drawn-out process, as was implementing it in the first place. However, Congress could pass laws that weaken the FCC’s enforcement power, and the agency can choose to ignore net neutrality violations.

The current rules don’t outline specific punishments for bad actors. If you’re expecting Silicon Valley giants to be the white knights fighting to save the free internet (remember their well-coordinated internet blackout in 2012?), understand that times have changed. Netflix for years positioned itself as a net neutrality advocate to help its business negotiations with ISPs. Now the company says it’s so big and successful that gutting net neutrality would no longer pose a financial threat. Facebook, meanwhile, has been mulling offering a “free” internet service that would use zero-rating to prioritize certain apps. Net neutrality would only get in the way of such a business opportunity. The nascent startups that would benefit from strong net neutrality protections the most already face a nearly impossible task in unseating the tech incumbents, and they’re unlikely to find support from their would-be rivals.

[Victor Luckerson is a writer for The Ringer]

A Q&A with Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez.

Chairwoman Ramirez is currently suing two of Seattle’s biggest tech companies: Amazon, for allegedly making it too easy for kids to rack up in-app purchases on their parents’ Kindles, and T-Mobile, for allegedly cramming unwanted charges into customers’ phone bills.

Chairman Ramirez has taken a laser focus to the activities of tech companies, particularly in regards to mobile. The new FTC head talked about the hidden permissions lurking in terms of service agreements, Facebook’s controversial mood study and whether Americans should ever expect a “right to be forgotten” online.