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Federal regulators voted Thursday to impose sweeping net neutrality rules that supporters say are critical to protecting the freedom of the Internet. In a party-line 3-2 vote, the Federal Communications Commission moved to embrace an approach advocated by President Obama to treat the Web like a utility in order to prevent major companies such as Comcast or Verizon from slowing, blocking or creating “toll roads” for people’s access to the Internet.“The Internet is the most powerful and pervasive platform on the planet; it’s simply too important to be left without rules and without a referee on the field,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a Democrat.“The Internet is simply too important to allow broadband providers to be the ones making the rules.” After a decade spent by activists pushing for strong federal rules, supporters said that the tough new rules would be a strong bulwark to prevent people from being abused online. In the end, those activists helped drive more than 4 million net neutrality comments to the agency — by far an FCC record. On Thursday, the commission’s meeting room was packed with activists, lawyers and journalists who trudged through the rare February snowfall to attend the historic hearing. Meanwhile, dozens of proponents of the rules gathered outside the agency’s Southwest Washington headquarter
