Quote

At its core, the FCC's plan to regulate the Internet will force businesses and people to check first with the government and get permission to innovate.

From search and books to online TV and operating systems, antitrust affects our daily digital lives in more ways than we think.

The industry must adhere to certain consumer protection norms if the Internet is to remain an open platform for innovation.

The thing we have to be careful of is that the Internet is a global communications medium, and if one country tips the balance in regulating its use or regulating what companies or individuals do on the web, it could have an economic impact that might be unintended, quite frankly, by the regulations themselves.

Experience has shown us that attempts to control the Internet will invariably fail. We should be instructed by the failed efforts of China to regulate political content, the efforts of America to regulate Internet gambling, or the efforts of Australia to regulate certain speech. By its very nature, the Internet will always resist such controls.

A number of countries, including Russia and China, have put forward proposals to regulate aspects of the Internet like 'crime' and 'security' that are currently unregulated at the global level due to lack of international consensus over what those terms actually mean or over how to balance enforcement with the protection of citizens' rights.

The only way the Internet will continue to remain the thriving medium it has become today is to keep it under the control of the United States.

Internet safety begins at home and that is why my legislation would require the Federal Trade Commission to design and publish a unique website to serve as a clearinghouse and resource for parents, teachers and children for information on the dangers of surfing the Internet.

Net Neutrality - a guiding principle of the Internet since its beginning - means that content is all treated equally.

I fear that light touch regulations that have allowed the Internet to prosper will now be replaced by a heavy hand that stifles innovation and does not adapt well to change. The Internet is not broken.