Your World Wide Web Freedom is in Jepordy

Big phone and cable companies are trying to get rid of Network Neutrality, the principle that protects our ability go where we want and do what we chose online. More than 1.5 million Save the Internet : Fighting for Internet Freedom supporters are fighting to keep the Internet free and open for everyone.


How does this threat to Internet freedom affect you? Such corporate control of the Web would reduce your choices and stifle the spread of innovative and independent ideas that we've come to expect online. It would throw the digital revolution into reverse. Internet gatekeepers are already discriminating against Web sites and services they don't like:

• In October 2007, the Associated Press busted Comcast for blocking its users' access to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like BitTorrent and Gnutella. This fraudulent practice is a glaring violation of Net Neutrality.
• In September 2007, Verizon was caught banning pro-choice text messages. After a New York Times expose, the phone company reversed its policy, claiming it was a glitch.
• In August 2007, AT&T censored a live webcast of a Pearl Jam concert just as lead singer Eddie Vedder criticized President Bush.
• In 2006, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned EchoDitto -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
• In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.
• In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.
• Shaw, a major Canadian cable, internet, and telephone service company, intentionally downgrades the "quality and reliability" of competing Internet-phone services that their customers might choose -- driving customers to their own phone services not through better services, but by rigging the marketplace.

This is just the beginning. Cable and telco giants want to eliminate the Internet's open road in favor of a tollway that protects their status quo while stifling new ideas and innovation.

What they've got planned
The threat to an open internet isn't just speculation -- we've seen what happens when the Internet's gatekeepers get too much control. These companies, even, have said as much about their plans to discriminate online. According to the Washington Post:

William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.

He's not alone. Ed Whitacre of AT&T told BusinessWeek:

Now what they 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. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

By far the most significant evidence regarding the network owners' plans to discriminate is their stated intent to do so. As Verizon's Ivan Seidenberg told the Wall Street Journal:

We have to make sure they don't sit on our network and chew up our capacity. We need to pay for the pipe.

Network Neutrality advocates are not imagining a doomsday scenario. We are taking the telecom execs at their word.

Who will be affected?

Small businesses -- The little guy will be left in the "slow lane" with inferior Internet service, unable to compete.

Innovators with the next big idea -- Startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay Internet providers for the top spots on the Web.

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.

Google users -- Another search engine could pay dominant Internet providers like AT&T to guarantee another search engine opens faster than Google on your computer.

Ipod listeners -- A company like Comcast could slow access to iTunes, steering you to a higher-priced music service it owns.

Online shoppers -- Companies could pay Internet providers to guarantee their online sales process faster than competitors with lower prices -- distorting your choices as a consumer.

Telecommuters -- 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.

Political groups -- Political organizing could be slowed by a handful of dominant Internet providers who ask advocacy groups to pay "protection money" for their Web sites and online features to work correctly.

Nonprofits -- A charity's website could open at snail-like speeds, and online contributions could grind to a halt if nonprofits don't pay Internet providers for access to "the fast lane."

This is nothing more than an attempt at limiting your freedom and your access not to mention if you make your living online, you will be hit hard. You cannot let this happen. Vote for people who support Net Neutrality. Do it now.

Thanks to an online friend who supplied some of the information on this post.