When the Internet fully opened for commercial use during the Clinton administration, there was a remarkable bipartisan consensus that this new innovation should be permissionless. Anyone should be able to launch a new website, application or device without government approval. The Internet wouldn’t be a heavily regulated utility like the old phone system.

“It just doesn’t make sense to apply hundred-year-old regulations meant for copper wires and giant switching stations to the networks of today,” said the Democratic Federal...