Obama appoints net neutrality supporter to FCC

Julius Genachowski is an old classmate of Barack Obama's

US president-elect Barack Obama is to appoint net neutrality supporter Julius Genachowski to the top job at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Genachowski is well known in the technology community. He has held various positions at search and media company IAC/InterActiveCorp, and is a former chief counsel for Reed Hundt, the FCC chairman under former president Bill Clinton.

During the presidential campaign Genachowski was one of Obama's top technology advisors, and raised a reported $500,000 (£344,000) for the campaign.

He is known to be a supporter of net neutrality, which is going to be one of the top IT issues facing the new administration.

As head of the FCC, Genachowski will also have a big say on bandwidth throttling, and the planned extension of wireless broadband across the US as part of a current spectrum auction.

Genachowski, an old classmate of Obama's, is not expected to have problems when facing questions from Congress about his appointment to the FCC.