Federal Trade Commission seeks to clarify net neutrality

Service providers must be upfront about managing and regulating network traffic

The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has vowed to clarify the use of network neutrality in the US.

Jon Leibowitz said in an interview on C-SPAN that the FTC will seek to force service providers to be clear with consumers about their practices in managing and regulating network traffic.

"We are a consumer protection agency, and we believe that consumers need to have notice and consent about what they are getting," he said.

"It is very, very important that these providers tell consumers about the speed they are getting, and whether they are making any types of management decisions."

Leibowitz stopped short of advocating broad net neutrality, however, saying that companies could throttle types of traffic if users have been expressly and properly informed of the policy.

"I think it is reasonable to charge more for higher speeds, and if someone is using a lot of bandwidth it is not unreasonable to charge more," Leibowitz explained. "But you have to do in the context of giving them notice so that they can consent to it."

Network neutrality has been a hot topic in the US, particularly since cable provider Comcast was found to be actively throttling the traffic for users running BitTorrent downloads last year.

The EU recently took a stance on the subject when it passed the controversial Harbour Report.