Google, Facebook, Twitter blast FCC's 'net neutrality' plan

Over 100 leading technology companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon have written to U.S. telecom regulators to oppose a new "net neutrality" plan that would regulate how Internet providers manage web traffic.

A proposal by the Federal Communications Commission "represents a grave threat to the Internet," the companies said in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and the agency's four commissioners.

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The FCC is set to vote on new proposed rules on May 15.

The rules would allow U.S. internet providers to charge content providers, including rapidly-growing services like Netflix, for priority access to customers provided the agreement is commercially reasonable.

Consumer advocates have complained that these agreements would offer a "fast lane" to content providers who pay up for better traffic delivery to the user.

Meanwhile, one of the Democratic members of the FCC commission examining the new rules urged the agency to push back its scheduled vote "by at least a month."

"While I recognize the urgency to move ahead and develop rules with dispatch, I think the greater urgency comes in giving the American public opportunity to speak right now, before we head down this road," FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said in her remarks prepared for delivery at the meeting of Chief Officers of State Library Agencies in Washington.

"I believe that rushing headlong into a rulemaking next week fails to respect the public response to his proposal."