Dive Brief:

• In a letter sent Wednesday to the Federal Communications Commission, more than 100 companies, including several retailers, urged against allowing internet providers to vary their charges to online companies.

• Amazon.com, eBay Inc., Etsy Inc., Google, Twitter, Yahoo, and others were among the letter’s signatories.

• The FCC is considering rules, to be voted on May 15, that would allow Internet service providers to charge higher prices for faster internet speeds, a policy that would greatly affect online retailers and search engines, as well as streaming sites and other web-based operations.

Dive Insight:

The FCC has already gone down the path of disrupting net neutrality by passing rules along these lines, but the federal courts have intervened. As retailers boost their online efforts and increase their use of content, they are increasingly vulnerable to policies that would, in effect, create “slow lanes” and more expensive “fast lanes” on the internet. Consumers have high expectations of e-commerce sites with rich, responsive content, and retailers could be facing much higher costs of meeting those expectations if such rules go through.