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Minority entrepreneurs face a lot of challenges; heavy-handed government overregulation of the internet shouldn’t be one of them. Let’s be clear. As a minority entrepreneur, I understand the importance of an open Internet and strongly support policies that benefit consumers, but the outdated Internet regulations passed by the Obama Federal Communications Commission (FCC) simply do more harm than good.
Internet entrepreneurs can have their cake and eat it too –a policy that protects the principles of “net neutrality” and increase accessibility without holding back internet investment and new innovations. The recent plan announced by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai strikes this balance by protecting openness and ending the current regulatory overreach that is threatening the Internet and its users with excessive government controls, fees, regulations, taxes, and censorship.
In 2015, the FCC imposed new rules on the Internet using Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, an obscure, antiquated law written to govern public utilities like railroads and old-fashioned rotary dial telephone service. Needless to say, the Internet has little – or nothing – in common with those kinds of businesses, and rules written decades before cyberspace even existed are not up to the task of capably regulating the online world.
Imposing ill-fitting 80-year-old regulations on the Internet make even less sense in light of the fact that there was no reason to do it or no problem that needed solving when the FCC acted in 2015 under intense pressure from President Obama and lobbyists. The regulations were promoted as a safeguard against behemoth internet service providers (ISP)that could unfairly limit access and control, which restricts individuals and businesses on what they can and cannot do online. But ISPs weren’t doing any of that and never have, it makes no business sense, and free-market principles shouldn’t have such monopolistic custody of the Internet.
In fact, a lack of government regulation has long been recognized as a key factor in the growth and success of the Internet. The light-touch regulatory approach put in place during the Clinton Administration has served everyone from ISPs to consumers to edge companies very well. And it has helped create a powerful tool for minority entrepreneurs.
In spite of having to struggle to find investment capital and other resources, minorities are avid entrepreneurs. According to the Small Business Administration, almost one-third of all U.S. businesses are owned by minorities, creating $1.38 trillion in annual revenues and supporting 7.2 million jobs. From 2007 to 2012, when America narrowly escaped a complete collapse of financial markets, a net 2 million new minority-owned businesses were created while one million net nonminority businesses closed.
Access to online tools for marketing, sales, advertising, financing, and other core business functions are essential to the success of minority entrepreneurs. They need better and faster Internet access instead of more government interference. Allowing misguided Internet regulations to stifle investment, innovation, and network expansion directly impedes the creation and success of minority-owned companies.
The Internet is not a monopoly or a public utility, but it is a marvel of the free market where ISPs invest billions of dollars in private capital yearly in an intensely competitive marketplace. Any Internet provider that decided to start abusing its subscribers by violating net neutrality principles would soon find itself out of business.
The government has proved that it can exercise reasonable oversight of the Internet. Before the Obama regulations stripped the Federal Trade Commission of its authority to protect consumers online, that expert agency did an exemplary job of making sure online giants like Comcast and Google did not step out of bounds. The Federal Trade Commission protected consumers’ privacy, enforced open internet principles, took action against unauthorized billings, among other abuses. Going back to that model, instead of allowing the FCC to become a bull in a china shop looking for a problem to fix, makes a lot of sense.
The Internet activists and special interests who loudly, self-righteously lobbied and bullied the FCC under the Obama administration for public utility regulation of the Internet – many of whom were nothing more than paid shills for special interests and big Internet companies– got what they wanted at the expense of the rest of us who depend on a vibrant and always evolving the Internet. Now Chairman Pai is on the right track; he understands that limiting government interference will restore balance to the Internet and provide real results for real people. On behalf of minority business owners, I wish him the best.