The Open Internet principles were not legal rules adopted by the FCC; they were effectively a press statement posted on the FCC website.

The Internet isn't just itself a revolution - it sometimes starts them, too.

The Internet is one of the most revolutionary technologies the world has ever known. It has given us an entire universe of information in our pockets.

I have tried to help build a framework that recaptures the First Amendment as a principle to empower all Americans, politically and personally, through access to plentiful, diverse communications spaces.

Today, in 2011, I'm giving Secretary Hillary Clinton the nod as the Obama Administration's improbable MVP in the technology realm.

Net neutrality sounds wonky and technical but is actually quite simple. It would keep the Internet as it has always been - cable and phone companies would remain mere gateways to all sites, rather than gatekeepers determining where users can go and what innovators can offer them.

On the Internet, speed matters. According to research by Microsoft, Google, and others, if a website is even 250 milliseconds slower than a rival, people will visit it less often.

Without the ability to criticize unjust laws in powerful symbolic ways, we can't change them. And the point of a democracy is that people should be able to convince other people to change a law.

Congress created a safe harbor for defamation in 1996 and for copyright in 1998. Both safe harbors were designed to ensure that the Internet would remain a participatory medium of speech.

Default choices often remain unchanged for no reason other than being the default, either because of this lack of information or humans' status quo bias.

Political institutions are fair game in political debates in a democracy. Nothing is more fair game, in fact, than political matters of public concern.

Charter's merger sales pitch is pretty straightforward: it argues that it has always been too small to bully Internet companies, TV makers, and its own customers, so it has'un-cable' practices they hope to extend.

President Obama is a big supporter of keeping the Internet open. During his presidential campaign, he pledged his support to net neutrality repeatedly.

In the early 1990s, Americans used their home phone lines to connect their desktop computers to the Internet via ISPs like AOL, Earthlink, or Netzero. Back then, the ISPs didn't have cost-effective technology to select particular sites for blocking or privileging.

Being a 'monopoly' is not illegal, nor is trying to best one's competitors through lower prices, better customer service, greater efficiency, or more rapid innovation.

Without network neutrality, cable and phone companies could stifle innovation.

To me, freedom of speech and debate are necessary inputs in solving any of our nation's problems, from homelessness and economic inequality to banking, the environment, and national security. Freedom of speech is what Larry Lessig would call a 'root' issue; working on free speech is striking at a root issue.

As each year and debate passes, more broadband companies will start to see that their future lies not in restricting an open Internet but in betting on it.

President Obama's FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, has a reputation in D.C. of being a 'tepid' regulator. From reports of his net neutrality proposal, he's living up to that reputation.

Broadband companies can have great success offering access to the unfettered Internet.

Free speech has remained a quintessential American ideal, even as our society has moved from the ink quill to the touch screen.

Net neutrality is the idea that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all traffic that goes through their networks the same, not offering preferential treatment to some websites over others or charging some companies arbitrary fees to reach users.

Google (and Bing and Yahoo!) don't 'owe' any company traffic. If a company has to spend more on advertising on Google, in addition to investing in search-engine-optimization, that is not a violation of any law.

Evidence and economic theory suggests that control of the Internet by the phone and cable companies would lead to blocking of competing technologies.

In 1984, the Federal Trade Commission released a report that explained why taxis could charge customers exorbitant prices for dismal service. The simple reason, according to the 176-page study: lack of competition in the market. The culprit: local governments.

Almost 85 percent of the Latin American market is subject to net neutrality rules, and the European Parliament already favors strong ones.

The iPhone will forever be associated with the inventive genius of Steve Jobs and Silicon Valley. But the roots of innovation can be traced back - from one genius to another, at least - back to the genius who put the phone in iPhone: Alexander Graham Bell.

The first devices to record and play back music were the phonograph and the gramophone. The gramophone's inventor: Alexander Graham Bell.

I'm all in favor of the FTC investigating companies when it believes there is proper cause to do so. An investigation, however, can lead to political pressure to bring a case, even if such a case is unwarranted.

If a company is not a monopoly, then the law assumes market competition can restrain the company's actions. No problem. If a monopoly exists, but the monopoly does not engage in acts designed to destroy competition, then we can assume that it earned and is keeping its monopoly the pro-consumer way: by out-innovating its competitors.

Google's competitors fail to demonstrate that Google's actions stifle competition rather than reflect pro-consumer innovations.

Google's competitors argue that Google designs its search display to promote Google 'products' like Google Maps, Google Places, and Google Shopping, ahead of competitors like MapQuest, Yelp, and product-search sites.

Anyone unhappy with Google can use other search engines - including DuckDuckGo and Blekko, along with Bing or Yahoo.

Google pays advertisers based not just on payment per click but also by number of clicks. The interplay between the two sets the prices, so a government-regulated price for 'equal access' might be difficult to set.

Companies like Pinterest and Twitter did not become sensations because of Google search but because of the many ways users find out about great sites.

Much of my work strikes me as pretty unified: as a lawyer, working in several areas, I have thought about how to promote freedom of speech broadly for everyone.

I find personalized search convenient - I read stories on my Facebook feed, my Twitter feed, daily email services, and my iPhone's Flipboard app, and would love to be able to focus my searches on just those particular services.

Facebook refuses to let Google index or display content from its site. Facebook has partnered with Bing to make its results more social. Is Facebook acting to leverage its dominance in social towards a dominance in search?

News seems to travel far more quickly on Twitter and Facebook than through search.

I discover real-time news far more often on Facebook than on Google News or a regular Google search.

By definition, the Singularity means that machines would be smarter than us, and, in their wisdom, they can innovate new technologies. The innovations would come so quickly, and increasingly quickly, that the innovation would make Moore's Law seem as antiquated as Hammurabi's Code.

'Negative liberty' is a political science term meaning a liberty from government action. It is not a liberty to anything - like the liberty to meaningfully contribute to public debate or to have ample spaces for speech.

Any 'network neutrality' rule should be designed to forbid phone or cable companies from controlling the Internet.

A network neutrality rule could result in mere 'slaps on the wrist' or involve such expensive and difficult litigation procedures that no small company or consumer could ever bring a case.

Net neutrality is the right thing for our democracy, economy, and global competitiveness. And Americans support an open Internet.

Liability limit has become a symbol of corporate greed in passing the risk of disaster to the U.S. government and U.S. citizens.

The FCC banned throttling for good reason, namely that Internet service providers should not bias their networks toward some applications or classes of applications. Biasing the network interferes with user choice, innovation, decisions of application makers, and the competitive marketplace.

The user, not the ISP, should be the kingmaker of apps.

Even though the Internet touches every part of our lives, one person is to blame for potentially destroying its potential for innovation and freedom of expression: former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

'Network neutrality' is sometimes called 'Internet freedom' or 'Internet openness' and is a legal principle that would forbid cable and phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast from blocking some websites or providing special priority to others.