MoveOn.Org's Request from 5/1
Submitted by JCheDavies on May 2, 2006 - 6:09pm.
Companies like AT&T want the power to decide which Web sites open properly on your computer—based on which sites pay them the most. This will distort the entire Internet.
Next week, Congress votes on the fate of the free and open Internet. Can you sign our petition to save the Internet?
Jen and others, FYI, the following is what I received yesterday from MoveOn:Dear MoveOn member,
Big Internet operators like AT&T and Verizon want the power to decide which Web sites open properly on our computers—giving them control over what we do and where we search online. So far, Congress has caved to their demands.
But because of intense public pressure, some members of Congress are starting to switch from AT&T's side to ours! In just a week, Congress saw over 250,000 of us sign a petition demanding the Internet stay free. Joining this call are tech pioneers like Google and Microsoft, diverse groups ranging from MoveOn to Gun Owners of America, and even some celebrities.
If enough of us stand up now, there's still time for the House of Representatives to do the right thing next week when it votes on whether to protect or destroy Network Neutrality—the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom.
Can you join our petition asking Congress to protect the free and open Internet?
http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/?id=7450-1873372-fbFNpQPZfBk5TyYm2if79g&t=2
This petition will be delivered to your members of Congress, and everyone who signs will be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the pressure on Congress this week.
Companies like AT&T are spending millions lobbying Congress to gut Net Neutrality. A House committee voted to go along with AT&T's scheme last week, but we are fighting back hard before next week's full House vote. We want to raise public awareness of this issue and hand Congress 350,000 signatures.
To reach this goal, we're launching a contest: Ask your friends to sign the petition and you can win one of 10 iPod Nanos or one of 40 BarnesandNoble.com gift certificates. Start by signing the petition yourself, and you'll receive instructions to enter the contest.
Snopes.com, which monitors various causes that circulate on the Internet, recently explained this issue:
Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site's traffic has precedence over any other's...Whether a user searches for recipes using Google, reads an article on snopes.com, or looks at a friend's MySpace profile, all of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user's web browser with the same priority. In recent months, however, some of the telephone and cable companies that control the telecommunications networks over which Internet data flows have floated the idea of creating the electronic equivalent of a paid carpool lane.
If companies like AT&T have their way, Web sites ranging from Google to eBay to MoveOn either pay the equivalent of protection money to get into the "fast lane" or risk opening slowly on your computer. We can't allow the Internet—this incredible medium which has been such a revolutionary force for democratic participation, economic innovation, and free speech—to become captive to large corporations.
Join our petition asking Congress to protect Internet freedom by clicking here:
http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/?id=7450-1873372-fbFNpQPZfBk5TyYm2if79g&t=3
Thank you for all you do.
–Eli Pariser, Noah T. Winer, and Adam Green
Monday, May 1st, 2006
P.S. You can support this member-driven campaign today. As companies like AT&T spend millions lobbying Congress to gut Internet freedom, we will win this fight because of the power of regular people. A donation of $10, $20, or more would go a long way. You can donate here:
https://civic.moveon.org/donatec4/creditcard.html?id=7450-1873372-fbFNpQPZfBk5TyYm2if79g&t=4
P.P.S. If Congress abandons Network Neutrality, who will be affected?
- Advocacy groups like MoveOn—Political organizing could be slowed by a handful of dominant Internet providers who ask advocacy groups to pay "protection money" for their websites and online features to work correctly.
- Nonprofits—A charity's website could open at snail-speed, and online contributions could grind to a halt, if nonprofits can't pay dominant Internet providers for access to "the fast lane" of Internet service.
- Google users—Another search engine could pay dominant Internet providers like AT&T to guarantee the competing search engine opens faster than Google on your computer.
Innovators with the "next big idea"—Startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay Internet providers for dominant placing on the Web. The little guy will be left in the "slow lane" with inferior Internet service, unable to compete. - iPod listeners—A company like Comcast could slow access to iTunes, steering you to a higher-priced music service that it owned.
- Online purchasers—Companies could pay Internet providers to guarantee their online sales process faster than competitors—if BarnesandNoble.com was much slower than Amazon.com that would distort your choice as a consumer.
- Small businesses and tele-commuters—When Internet companies like AT&T favor their own services, you won't be able to choose more affordable providers for online video, teleconferencing, Internet phone calls, and software that connects your home computer to your office.
- Parents and retirees—Your choices as a consumer could be controlled by your Internet provider, steering you to their preferred services for online banking, health care information, sending photos, planning vacations, etc.
- Bloggers—Costs will skyrocket to post and share video and audio clips—silencing citizen journalists and putting more power in the hands of a few corporate-owned media outlets.
From Che'
Contact Senators ask them to co-sponsor the Wyden bill www.savetheinternet.org
"Double or nothing is not a foreign policy" - Josh Marshall 4/30/2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
rep-ed-markey/the-fight-for-
network-neu_b_20278.html
Rep. Ed Markey
On the Side Of Saving The Internet
05.03.2006
Last week, those on the side of saving the Internet as we know it - those who revere its open architecture, and respect its powerful ability to promote innovation - scored a moral victory of sorts by improving our vote in a key House Energy and Commerce Committee markup. For certain, we closed the gap considerably on the Network Neutrality amendment that I offered along with Representatives Boucher (D-VA), Eshoo (D-CA), and Inslee (D-WA) from the time it was first offered in the Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee at the beginning of April.
While the amendment lost thanks to all Republican members save one voting against it, we clearly now have the momentum swinging to our side. Sometime in the coming two weeks, the House leadership will bring the so-called "COPE Act" (HR 5252) to the House floor, where I will again attempt to attach real net neutrality protections to the legislation.
The COPE Act is woefully deficient in protecting the Internet. Its provisions essentially bless the broadband designs of a few large companies, such as AT&T and Verizon, over those of thousands of web-based businesses, entrepreneurs, and individual citizens.
It is vital that we enact meaningful network neutrality provisions as soon as possible, because the threat facing the Internet is very real. Recent decisions by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and court interpretations clearly put these aspects of broadband networks and the Internet in jeopardy. The replacement of historic policies of nondiscrimination with the imposition of bottleneck taxes by broadband network owners endangers economic growth, innovation, job creation, and First Amendment freedom of expression on such networks. Broadband network owners should not be able to determine who can and who cannot offer services over broadband networks or over the Internet. The detrimental effect to the digital economy would be quite severe if such conduct were permitted and became widespread.
Think that it's unlikely that these fears will come to pass, and that legislation enshrining these principles of network neutrality is unnecessary? Then take a look at what several industry leaders have said on this topic in recent months:
Just a few weeks after the FCC removed the Internet's protections, the Chairman of then-SBC Communications made the following statement in a November 7th Business Week interview: "Now what they [Google, Yahoo, MSN] would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. . . ."
In a December 1, 2005 Washington Post article, a BellSouth executive indicated that his company wanted to strike deals to give certain Web sites priority treatment in reaching computer users. The article noted this would "significantly change how the Internet operates" and that the BellSouth executive said "his company should be allowed to charge a rival voice-over-Internet firm so that its service can operate with the same quality as BellSouth's offering." Meaning, that if the rival firm did not pay, or was not permitted to pay for competitive reasons, its service presumably would not "operate with the same quality" as BellSouth's own product.
Finally, on January 6, 2006, the CEO of Verizon, in an address to the Consumer Electronics Show also indicated that Verizon would now be the corporate arbiter of how traffic would be treated when he said the following: "We have to make sure [content providers] don't sit on our network and chew up our capacity."
I think these statements should give pause to those who might argue that we shouldn't do anything to enact strong network neutrality provisions because currently no harm is being done.
Do we really have to wait till these corporate giants divide and conquer the open architecture of the Internet to make that against the law? These telephone company executives are telling us that they intend to discriminate in the prioritization of bits and to discriminate in the offering of "quality of service" functions - for a new fee, a new broadband bottleneck toll - to access high bandwidth customers. We cannot afford to wait until they actually start doing that before we step in to stop it.
Yesterday, I introduced the Network Neutrality Act of 2006 (HR 5273) as a standalone bill. The Network Neutrality Act of 2006 offers Members a clear choice. It is a choice between broadband barons and average-joe cyber-surfers, between the pre-chosen voices favored by those in the executive suite and the wonderfully chaotic nature of the net, where a chorus or a cacophony of voices can emerge on any and every issue. At its heart, this issue is about safeguarding the Internet as a low-barrier-to-entry platform for innovation.
In short, this legislation is designed to save the Internet and thwart those who seek to fundamentally and detrimentally alter the Internet as we know it, and it is my belief that the unbelievable grassroots uprising that we have seen on this issue over the past few weeks will help propel us to victory and secure the future of the Internet for all of us.
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Contact Senators ask them to co-sponsor the Wyden bill www.savetheinternet.org
"Double or nothing is not a foreign policy" - Josh Marshall 4/30/2006
http://tinyurl.com/hjjwj
MOVEON.ORG
Save the Internet
Congress is now pushing a law that would end the free and open Internet as we know it. Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. So Amazon doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.
Many members of Congress take campaign contributions from these companies, and they don't think the public are paying attention to this issue. Let's show them we care - please sign this petition today.
Congress must keep the Internet free and open by voting for meaningful and enforceable Network Neutrality--the Internet's First Amendment.
For more information, or to link to MoveOn's outreach on this issue, check out: http://civic.moveon.org/alerts/savetheinternet.html