"Providing me less than that seems disingenuous at the least." The 2010 rule that the F.C.C. says AT&T violated is part of the agency's 2010 Open Internet order, an earlier attempt by the agency to protect the principles of net neutrality, or the concept that no service provider should be allowed to manipulate a web user's access to content. While most of that order was invalidated by a federal court after Verizon sued the F.C.C., the transparency rule applied in this case was upheld by the court and has been in effect since 2011. Critics of the enforcement action said it highlighted that the F.C.C. had too broad and too subjective a say over what kind of behavior was acceptable from service providers, a criticism of the regulations approved this year. The agency's Republican minority on Wednesday called the proposed $100 million penalty too severe.