Reprinted from...

Stop the Corporate Hijack of the Internet by Supporting ‘Net Neutrality’

Are you for free speech? Then you should speak up in favor of keeping the Internet free from control by a few huge corporations. You should support the “Net Neutrality” legislation in Congress.

The Internet now provides the most democratic means of communication there is. A single individual’s web page or blog has just as much access to the world as that of a huge corporation. A page of the same size will load just as fast, and how fast depends only on the speed of the Internet connection each individual pays for: dialup, DSL, cable, and so on.

It is the one area in which the average person has just as much ability to reach millions of people as the largest corporation. So it was inevitable that the big communications companies would someday want to put a price tag on this. A group of the largest Internet Service Providers like Verizon, Comcast, BellSouth, Time Warner, and ATT want to create a “tiered system,” so they can make a financial killing.

By paying a large fee a big corporation or wealthy special interest could guarantee that its web pages opened faster in your browser and appeared first in your search engine. If you don’t pay a fee, your page will open slower – or not be found.

Political censorship is part of this proposal too. Internet Service Providers would also be able to block access to site they don’t like -- for example, according to political content.

The New York Times called this “a financial windfall for Internet service providers, but a disaster for users.” Allowing the telecoms their tiered system would be a huge blow to our freedom of speech.

Yet industry-sponsored groups are calling such corporate control “freedom” – the “free market system.” It does “free” huge communications companies to charge whatever fees they can get, and “frees” wealthy companies and groups to buy privileged access.

This is what the “free market system” means – those who have the money, have the access. The rest of us lose out. So there’s a conflict of interest here. The continued “freedom” for the vast majority of Internet users can only be guaranteed by regulation. Congress must step in to keep the Internet truly free – not to the corporations, but to the people.

What can we do to keep the big media corporations from taking away our Internet freedom?

* Sign the petition at http://SaveTheInternet.com and http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/?a=5

* Support the efforts by Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), and Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Bryan Dorgan (D-ND) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) to ban a “tiered” Internet.

* Contact your Senators and Congressperson to tell them you support “Net Neutrality” legislation.
 

Grover Furr
Bloomfield NJ