Crusading AG Exits the Picture

One of the most prominent state attorneys general leading the pushback against the FCC’s rollback of network neutrality rules won’t be hammering on the agency or internet service providers anymore — at least not from his once-high position.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who resigned May 8 after a story in The New Yorker featured allegations of physical abuse by four women, has been a familiar name in communications circles. Schneiderman, a Democrat, had prominently pushed for an investigation into the FCC’s net neutrality docket, and had vowed to sue the agency over its rollback of its 2015 Obama-era network neutrality rules. He then spearheaded a group of 22 state attorneys general who did just that.

Schneiderman had launched his own investigation of New York residents whose names were misused in the net neutrality docket, complaining that the FCC was not being cooperative. Also on Schneiderman’s docket has been a complaint he filed alleging that Time Warner Cable (acquired by Charter Communications in 2016) had “promised to provide broadband speeds it knew it could not deliver.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.