Reinstate net neutrality rules for internet service providers
Consumer and internet
Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Why shareholder democracy is pivotal
The conduct at issue, blocking, throttling and paid prioritization, is carried out by internet providers themselves, and binding company commitments to neutral treatment would deliver most of the outcome. ISPs have been the main opponents of the rules, and owners have long acted on this. Proposals asking AT&T, Verizon and Comcast to commit to net neutrality reached the SEC in 2011. Senators Franken and Wyden objected to staff rulings that let the companies exclude the votes.
How this was scoredPivotal
Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Common Ground of the American People: Net Neutrality, Program for Public Consultation / Voice of the People, 2026 (study February 2022)
- Sens. Franken, Wyden to SEC: You're Wrong to Tell Telecom Shareholders that Net Neutrality Not a 'Significant Policy Issue', Office of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, 2011-03-10
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Coordinated coalitions of investors that filed net neutrality and open internet proposals at AT&T and Verizon between 2012 and 2014.
Filed the 2012 proposal asking AT&T to publicly commit to operating its wireless broadband network consistent with network neutrality principles, and defeated the company's attempt to have it excluded.
3 campaigns on record
Report on the business risks arising from the company's opposition to open internet principles.
Result: 26.4 percent of the vote, representing 30.6 billion dollars in support
Report on the business risks arising from the company's opposition to open internet principles.
Result: 24.1 percent of shareholder votes
Publicly commit to operate a neutral wireless network with neutral routing, so that the company does not privilege, degrade or prioritize any packet based on its source, ownership or destination.
With Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, Nathan Cummings Foundation
Result: not stated in source
On 10 February 2012 SEC staff denied AT&T's request to omit the proposal, citing the sustained public debate over net neutrality and the increasing recognition that the issue raises significant policy considerations.
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Common Ground of the American People's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.