A Republican advocacy group called "American Commitment" said today that 772,000 Americans have signed its petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to avoid "regulating the Internet"—a reference to the agency's current net neutrality proceeding.

"Regulating the Internet has always been a solution in search of a problem," says the petition, which is addressed to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. "By trying for a third time to regulate the Internet, the FCC is demonstrating that it is no longer acting in the interests of the American people. Instead of doing its real job—providing more spectrum for wireless users or deregulating wireline telephone service—it is trying to move backward in time to 1930s-era phone regulation. If the FCC drags 2014 technology back into 1930s regulations, the Internet will suffer, and so will the American people. Do not regulate the Internet."

The petition's website rotates through several pitches to make its case. One accuses the FCC of "usurping the legislative powers of the Congress by attempting to rewrite the laws passed by Congress." Signing the petition submits it as a comment to the FCC's net neutrality proceeding.

The message is unusual in advocating for an end to all regulation of the Internet. Even big Internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T support some form of net neutrality rules, while arguing that Internet service should not be treated as a utility. Smaller ISPs have argued for more expansive rules that also prevent content providers from abusing their market power.

American Commitment is a nonprofit and doesn't have to disclose its donors, the Center for Responsive Politics wrote last year. The group, which may have ties to the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, lobbies for Republican candidates and against Democrats.

The group's petition drive over the past three weeks followed massive support for net neutrality rules. An analysis of 800,000 public comments by the Sunlight Foundation found that fewer than one percent were clearly opposed to net neutrality and that two-thirds of commenters objected to the FCC's plan to allow paid "fast lanes" under which websites can buy preferential access from Internet service providers. The American Commitment petition could change those percentages.

Even before the petition began circulating, at least 60 percent of all comments were form letters, which "is actually a lower percentage than is common for high-volume regulatory dockets," the Sunlight Foundation said.

Netflix, reddit, and other Web companies have argued against fast lanes, saying they would give ISPs the right to discriminate against online businesses that don't pay for better service. Some small ISPs support net neutrality, too; an ISP operated by the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, a Tribal Nation in Minnesota, argued that without net neutrality it would operate at a disadvantage when competing with big ISPs who are in a position to strike deals with companies like Netflix.

Today is the deadline for people to submit reply comments into the FCC proceeding. More than three million comments have been received.