How does this threat to Internet freedom affect you?
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.
Political groups—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.
Online purchasers—Companies could pay Internet providers to guarantee their online sales process faster than competitors with lower prices—distorting 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.
Blocking Innovation
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."
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 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.
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.
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.
In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
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. If they get their way, they'll shut down the free flow of information and dictate how you use the Internet.
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This is the real deal folks. This will only open the door to complete control over what you see, where you see it, and how much it costs you just to log on and look at your favorite site. This will have a major effect on all university sites that publish information for public and student access and much more.
Get in the fight on this one. You will most certainly regret it if you don't. Even if you are a casual Internet surfer, your voice must be heard.
Call your Representative:
It's time.
Next week, the full House of Representatives votes on whether to protect Internet freedom. Your representative, Nick Rahall, needs to hear solid constituent support for protecting Net Neutrality—the Internet's First Amendment.
Here's an important detail:
Next week, House members will be voting on a larger law governing our nation's communication policy—and the current version of this bill guts Net Neutrality. So every representative needs to hear in no uncertain terms that either this horrible bill gets changed on the House floor to protect Internet freedom, or it should be voted against.
Some tips when calling:
1) If the staffer is making a tally of constituent calls, make sure they have a category specifically for "Vote no on the COPE telecom law if it doesn't protect Net Neutrality." Otherwise, your representative may get a diluted message and miss the point.
2) If they ask for more details, you can urge your representative to support the bipartisan Sensenbrenner-Conyers Net Neutrality amendment (HR 5417) which passed the House Judiciary Committee last week with a powerful 20-13 biparttisan majority. And if that fails, they should vote against the entire bill.
3) If you get a voicemail option, leave a message. They will get it.
Thanks for helping to save the Internet.
