THE details around network neutrality, the principle that internet-service providers (ISPs) must treat all sorts of web traffic equally, can be mind-numbingly abstruse. But they fuel passion, nonetheless. After Tom Wheeler, a former chairman of America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC), proposed unpopular net-neutrality rules in late 2014, for instance, protesters blocked his driveway, forcing him to walk to work. Their action was meant to illustrate the threat of big ISPs erecting toll-booths and other choke-points that would relegate less well-off consumers to digital slow lanes.

Now it is the turn of Ajit Pai (pictured), Mr Wheeler’s successor, to stir the hornets’ nest. In the coming days Mr Pai is expected to unveil a proposal for new rules on net neutrality. His plan is anticipated to be a testament both to his deregulatory agenda and to the big ISPs’ lobbying power. It would essentially take the FCC out of the equation when it comes to policing the smooth running of the internet.

Because of the protests in 2014 and because of a court decision that year suggesting that the FCC needed the jurisdiction to be able to mandate net-neutrality rules, Mr Wheeler reclassified internet access as a “telecommunications service” to be under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, meaning that ISPs are regulated as utilities. It is this change that Mr Pai has vowed to undo: he considers the FCC’s new dominion over ISPs as regulatory overkill.

Mr Pai does support general rules to protect net neutrality. Like other advocates of the principle, he credits these for the internet’s innovativeness. But he believes that light-touch regulation is enough. Once ISPs are no longer classed as telecommunications services he wants them to commit to net neutrality in their terms of service. This commitment would (in theory) be enforced by a different agency, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has the authority to go after firms if they fail to live up to promises they make to customers.

Yet the ISPs’ commitments would, at bottom, be voluntary, as critics such as Chris Lewis of Public Knowledge, an advocacy group, note. ISPs could refuse to make promises on net neutrality, or abandon them down the line. If they did break promises, it is unclear how vigorously the FTC would go after them. It has less expertise in network engineering, for example, so is much less well equipped to enforce the rules. And Mr Pai may risk going too far even for his own comfort on net neutrality. If he reclassifies internet access, he finds himself in the same situation Mr Wheeler was in: the FCC then has limited authority to intervene should things go wrong.

The logical answer to this legal conundrum would be for Congress to add a statute on net neutrality to the Telecommunications Act, which predates the rise of the internet. That is unlikely, given other legislative priorities such as health care and corporate tax, but in a less partisan universe, Republicans and Democrats would have little problem finding common ground on the subject, says Kevin Werbach of Wharton, a business school at the University of Pennsylvania.

Such a compromise would also be in tune with how the debate about net neutrality has evolved. Although they oppose internet access being regulated under Title II, most ISPs, including big ones such as AT&T and Verizon, have made their peace with net neutrality. The current rules have had no discernible negative impact on the companies, notes Mr Werbach. Investment in broadband networks may have fallen, as critics of the strict net-neutrality rules predicted, but such swings are common in the telecoms industry and there is no conclusive evidence that net neutrality is to blame for the fall.

Will Mr Pai’s plans trigger widespread protests similar to those in 2014? Mr Lewis of Public Knowledge expects that resistance will be stronger still, but others are not so sure. Although big internet firms such as Google, Netflix, Amazon and others have come out against his expected proposals, their opposition seems less determined than it was three years ago. Netflix, one of the fiercest defenders of net neutrality, says it is now big enough to stand up for itself. Activists, for their part, may already be weary from fighting Mr Trump’s government on other fronts.