[1] In so holding, the Court vacated a 2008 order issued by the FCC that asserted jurisdiction over network management policies and censured Comcast from interfering with its subscribers' use of peer-to-peer software.

[4] On behalf of users, the non-profit advocacy organizations Free Press and Public Knowledge filed a complaint with the FCC and claimed that such actions by an ISP ignored traditional network neutrality principles.

[5] Comcast initially complied with the order, but requested judicial review of the FCC's 2008 policy statement at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The Circuit Court held that the FCC failed to argue convincingly that its sanction against Comcast, which in turn was a regulation of the content delivery choices of an Internet service provider, could be justified as part of the ancillary jurisdiction allowed under the 1934 Communications Act.

The FCC could not show that its action of barring Comcast from interfering with its customers' use of particular web services was reasonably ancillary to the effective performance of its statutorily-mandated authority.

Instead, the FCC relied on a Congressional statement of policy and various provisions of the Communications Act, neither of which the Court found created "statutorily mandated responsibilities.

These rules would forbid cable broadband and DSL Internet service providers from blocking or slowing online applications.