The Federal Communication Commission's 400-page official order on net neutrality, released Thursday, will undoubtedly elicit lawsuits on various fronts once it is officially published in the Federal Register.
Net neutrality is about more than individual consumers' rights to stream video over the Web without paying extra for it. Partitioning the Internet into haves and have-nots will give big companies yet another advantage over smaller, more disruptive firms.
In spite of the fact that the net neutrality proposal that Google and Verizon published on Aug. 9 was not much like what the rumor mill predicted as late as the day before, the proposal sure has kicked off a lot of controversy.
As the U.S. Federal Communications Commission moves toward developing formal net neutrality rules, some U.S. lawmakers and telecom-related companies have told the agency that new regulations will cause more problems than they're worth.