This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.
As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.
This principle is called "net neutrality" -- and it's under attack. Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it.
The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing.
That's why Tuesday is such an important day. The FCC will be meeting to discuss those regulations, and we must make sure that its members understand that allowing corporations to control the Internet is simply unacceptable.
Although Chairman Genachowski's draft Order has not been made public, early reports make clear that it falls far short of protecting net neutrality.
For many Americans -- particularly those who live in rural areas -- the future of the Internet lies in mobile services. But the draft Order would effectively permit Internet providers to block lawful content, applications, and devices on mobile Internet connections.
Mobile networks like AT&T and Verizon Wireless would be able to shut off your access to content or applications for any reason. For instance, Verizon could prevent you from accessing Google Maps on your phone, forcing you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it costs money to use and isn't nearly as good. Or a mobile provider with a political agenda could prevent you from downloading an app that connects you with the Obama campaign (or, for that matter, a Tea Party group in your area).
It gets worse. The FCC has never before explicitly allowed discrimination on the Internet -- but the draft Order takes a step backwards, merely stating that so-called "paid prioritization" (the creation of a "fast lane" for big corporations who can afford to pay for it) is cause for concern.
It sure is -- but that's exactly why the FCC should ban it. Instead, the draft Order would have the effect of actually relaxing restrictions on this kind of discrimination.
What's more, even the protections that are established in the draft Order would be weak because it defines "broadband Internet access service" too narrowly, making it easy for powerful corporations to get around the rules.
Here's what's most troubling of all. Chairman Genachowski and President Obama -- who nominated him -- have argued convincingly that they support net neutrality.
But grassroots supporters of net neutrality are beginning to wonder if we've been had. Instead of proposing regulations that would truly protect net neutrality, reports indicate that Chairman Genachowski has been calling the CEOs of major Internet corporations seeking their public endorsement of this draft proposal, which would destroy it.
No chairman should be soliciting sign-off from the corporations that his agency is supposed to regulate -- and no true advocate of a free and open Internet should be seeking the permission of large media conglomerates before issuing new rules.
After all, just look at Comcast -- this Internet monolith has reportedly imposed a new, recurring fee on Level 3 Communications, the company slated to be the primary online delivery provider for Netflix. That's the same Netflix that represents Comcast's biggest competition in video services.
Imagine if Comcast customers couldn't watch Netflix, but were limited only to Comcast's Video On Demand service. Imagine if a cable news network could get its website to load faster on your computer than your favorite local political blog. Imagine if big corporations with their own agenda could decide who wins or loses online. The Internet as we know it would cease to exist.
That's why net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. And that's why, this Tuesday, when the FCC meets to discuss this badly flawed proposal, I'll be watching. If they approve it as is, I'll be outraged. And you should be, too.
The "Network Neutrality" debate is made by those who understand the danger of information technology and the power and profits to be made in controlling media. We are not predicting the end of the world, just a lesser world than could be, if corporations are allowed to own the means of communication.
It always strikes me as paradoxically ironic that those 'business people' who want to 'limit government regulation' are perfectly willing to form corporations, which are of course legal fictions created by government regulation to limit their personal responsibility.
If the debate is between corporate ownership of internet communication and government monopoly of internet communications, then we don't win either way. But that is what the corporate owned media is pushing in its propaganda. The real debate is between private or public ownership of the media.
Without equal access to information, without fair public access, we have no democracy.
What's more likely to happen here:
1) Corporations are allowed to charge more for faster speeds for certain data, and to block data that they just don't want to allow, which they then end up doing?
or
2) The government controls what you look at when all that net neutrality says is that the corporations CANNOT speed up certain data or block certain data?
BTW I hope you're right about the Net Neutrality Plan. I hope it is DOA because what they are proposing is worse than nothing.
SCOTUS does have the power to rule things unconstitutional - like McCain/Feingold, for instance. What don't you understand about that?
When a party controls the house, they control the laws that are submitted for vote - or not, as in the "party of no." In fact, Republicans did that to a degree even when they were the minority.
The president can do the things you said, but the political cost can instantly destroy the ruling effectiveness of he/she and their party, and get them voted out of office in the next election.
I apologize for not properly explaining myself.
.- President Obama
Obama can't afford to go back on another promise and it is a shame, a shame, that one of his own appointees might just deliver the internet to the big companies the way we'd have expected a Republican to.
Should Salinas put up toll booths to raise extra income? Or maybe we should block passage of produce grown in other areas, since Salinas Valley is "the lettuce capital of the world?" Maybe we should just claim outright ownership of all of Highway 101 because some of it happens to pass through our city?
Just because the Internet is a “virtual world’ doesn’t mean it isn’t in effect, a public roadway.
Or is private sponsorship of our streets and highways the next step in using corrupted government power to gain private control--if not outright ownership--of the entire nation?
I salute big corporations and their ability to win every time.
It would help if this article suggested some action step beyond joining Al in being outraged.
In case you were living in a cave, that beacon of truth, that man who so often enjoys yelling fire in a crowded theater, that man that has fomented murderous riots, a proven liar, a proven slanderer, an alleged criminal tax evader (most likely guilty of civil fraud and slanderer, Reverend AL SHARPTON has decided to come forward and be the spokesman for the cause and call for Congressional hearings.
King Julius would take us down the road of Mainland China to institute a internet watchdog agency to block websites that government officials deem unacceptable. If Napster and the destruction of the Free To Air Television sites is any indication, the proper arena for recourse is in the courts, not by government regulation and intrusion.
All that will happen is legitimate sites with government deemed, unacceptable speech will end up blocked, while bad guys like Jihadists and those acting against American interests will be a step ahead and will thrive like mushrooms on dung.
Ultimately people like many of the posters on this tread demonstrate severe biases, and would use the system to attack and control their supposed enemies, suggesting Republicans are behind it, when it is a Democrat Administration agenda item.
He is calling for congressional hearings in his effort to control other's free speech rights.
This from a man that slandered NYC DA Pagones, who lied under oath,
Yes, this is a Democratic administration, but not a very progressive one, from the standpoint of business-friendliness. And I'd remind you that it was the previous Republican administration that reclassified internet communications under Title 1, which is why the entire matter came up in the first place.
The idea was not to "set up" 'net neutrality - which is not synonymous with the fairness doctrine - but to preserve it as it existed prior to that reclassification. And the risk from the recent agreement is not government suppression of speech, but corporate, commercial suppression (or "prioritization," which amounts to the same thing) of content.
My guess is that, as you see how the results of the Genachowski plan develop over the next year or so, you'll be increasingly dissatisfied. At that time, it will be important to remember that corporate entities are in control rather than government ones.
But that's something we could readily refer to as a "technicality."
ONE COUNTRY, FORMERLY KNOWN AS "THE LAND OF THE FREE, THE HOME OF THE BRAVE". INTERESTED PARTIES PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL CONGRESSPERSON AND/OR THE PRESIDENT.