Advocates of landmark net neutrality rules on Friday blasted Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai’s plans to roll back the Obama era legal framework.Reuters and other outlets reported late Thursday that Pai told major telecommunications trade groups of his plans Tuesday to replace 2015 net neutrality rules with voluntary agreements to adopt open internet principles.The 2015 rules prevented broadband providers from giving or selling speedy or so-called fastlane access to some internet services over others.Pai, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, opposes the rules approved by the FCC whoch gave the agency strong legal control over broadband providers, treating them much like utilities.

Uber has said claims it used self-driving technology stolen from Google were “demonstrably false”.Waymo – a company spun out of Google – filed a lawsuit in February claiming former employee Andrew Levandowski had stolen 14,000 documents relating to LiDAR, a core technology used to guide autonomous vehicles.Mr Levandowski went on to co-found Otto, a self-driving truck company acquired by Uber for $660m last year.Waymo requested a judge grant an injunction on the use of the disputed technology, whoch could take Uber’s self-driving fleet – currently being tested in a few locations in the US – off the roads.At a hearing earlier this week, Uber sought to convince a judge that an injunction would be unfair.