Internet Protection Fight Starts in Washington -- Don't Just Sit There

The Huffington Post exists because the Internet exists as a way for you, yes you, to read what you want without interference from the Internet Service Provider you're using to get you here. The Internet exists today so that the video on the HuffPo site runs the same as the video on, say, the Talking Points Memo site, or Bill O'Reilly's site.

This all works at the moment out of the goodness of the hearts of those ISPs -- the telephone, cable and wireless companies. There is no legal requirement that they do so over high-speed, broadband networks. Now there is the glimmer that situation might change for the better.

The Obama Administration has been talking about an open Internet for months. Before that, the Obama campaign made it a centerpiece of a technology platform. Now, finally, the idea is getting some traction, and it's about time.

Julius Genachowski, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has only been in office since June 29, and in that time he's mostly been busy choosing heads for the Commission bureaus and finding senior staff while sorting through the responsibilities Congress gave the Commission to come up with a broadband plan.

So it's a great sign of things to come that one of the first actions of the Genachowski era that the Commission took of its own accord was to call some official attention to the fact that Apple was keeping Google's new Google Voice application off the shelves of the iPhone App Store. A New York Times story on July 28 reported that Apple had rejected two Google apps, including Google Voice. Letters from the FCC to Apple, to Google, and, interestingly, to AT&T, were sent out late July 31. That's warp speed for a government action.

The FCC wanted to know why Apple rejected the Voice application, and whether AT&T, the exclusive purveyor of the iPhone in the U.S., had anything to do with it, and what other applications have been rejected. The answers are due back to the Commission on Aug. 21.

Nothing like this could have conceivably taken place in the past eight years. The hands-off, consumer-be-damned policies of the past were firmly embedded in the psyches of the FCC appointees. Now, the concept of an open network has established at least a small foothold. Granted, there are lots of openness issues still floating around at the Commission. Skype has complained that AT&T will allow use of the Skype service on a wi-fi connection with the iPhone, but not over AT&T's own 3G service. Similarly, EchoStar has had its video-streaming Slingbox application blocked by AT&T. EchoStar said it was encouraged by the Commission action.

The fact that the Commission is making inquiries about the Apple exclusion should send the proper signal through the industry that a new day is starting to dawn, albeit slowly, at the FCC. Just as the fact that the complaint against Comcast for blocking BitTorrent was a signal to the cable industry about what is acceptable behavior, the right response from the Commission on the Apple action will transmit a much wider message than one simple app rejection on one phone over one service.

AT&T might view Google Voice as part of its mandate that its vendors not "facilitate the business of our competitors." The issue is much larger and it goes to what had been the fundamental principle of open networks.

The Commission hasn't yet become involved, but it appears that Apple is trying to keep Palm's new Pre phone from accessing the Apple store. This, too, might cause some heartburn with regulators and antitrust enforcers.

Meanwhile, the silence on open networks was equally deafening on Capitol Hill. The new chairman of the House Communications Committee, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), hasn't listed it high on his agenda. So two of the Internet's true champions, Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA), introduced their own bill, HR 3458, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009.

It was introduced late on July 31 in the hours just before the House went out for its summer break/district work period. The bill embodies the principles of non-discrimination and openness that would bring the Internet out from under the threatened and actual control of the telephone and cable companies and back to the principles on which the Internet was founded. It recognizes the limited competition in the broadband market, and would forbid carriers from blocking or degrading service, or prioritizing traffic for a competitive advantage.

Together, the actions of the FCC and the introduction of the bill in Congress signal that the future of the Internet is now in play in the Washington policy arena. It's game on. With members of Congress in their home districts for the "district work period" that this is a good time to let them know that Net Neutrality and the future of the Internet is something about which you care, and as a result, it is something about which your members of Congress should care as well.

Just remember -- the other side never gives up. They will fight this bill. They will fight any rule the FCC comes up with. They are already fighting to keep confidential the information on broadband deployment the government is trying to collect through the stimulus law. That's right -- after the law is passed, they still keep fighting and protesting. That's the way of Washington. Nothing ever ends, and it's usually the industry with the time, money and lobbyists to carry the fight on for as long as they can.

Take advantage of the summer and spread the message. This is not simply about the Internet-activist Netroots. This is about students and businessmen and musicians and artists and writers and mechanics in small towns and urban centers, and everyone else who wants and need a free and open Internet. Now is the time to start speaking up. We'll let you know when it's time to stop.

Follow Art Brodsky on Twitter: www.twitter.com/artbrodsky

Comments

[wheatsavage]

Like Linda Ronstadt said at a recent concert - television began the process of rotting our brains - and the internet finished it.
Turn off your computer, get off your fat ass, and get out and do something constructive people!

[TJCole]

There is a very simple solution Nationalize the broadband and fiber-optic network lines, we're already over paying and they are national infrastruc­ture...all­ow it to be run not for profit and keep it open...!

Nietzsche said:

"The will to a system, is the lack of integrity..!"

[GardenerNorCal]

That would be the simple right thing to do. I am sure there's a huge lobby against it.

[ScreenName05]

Notice that the argument always centers on selling someone's product or service. Open Internet is little more than a scam by marketers that want to make sure they can continue to drown everyone in ads, spam, pop-ups, cookies, etc. It has nothing to do with keeping the Internet open. But if one day ISPs are able to charge those advertisers for clogging up the Internet with all of their crap, you might just get what the internet has always promised. Don't believe me. Here are a few facts: ISPs daily filter out 60 billion spam emails - this adds about $2 to $5 a month to your monthly subscription bill. 1900 plus new malicious web sites are blocked every day. This adds an unknown amount to your monthly bill. Just be glad they are caught and shut down cause they could cost you everything. Something like 28% of all computers in the U.S. are part of botnets - your ISP is limited in helping you with this problem because you are so eager to get to all of those interesting websites that take over your computer and use it to process spam. Most of these statistics are available from Messagelabs (Symantic) or Ironport (CISCO) - do a very little research and learn the truth.

On the other hand we have kept the Internet safe for American marketers who need to get in your pants to get your wallet even if they are in Russia, or North Korea, or Rawanda, or

[Artos]

If they wanted to keep out all that spam, popups, ads etc. they could do it, but they don't really care to, and it also works to their benefit. How, because it gives them the very excuse that you mentioned. By claiming that it will benefit you as an internet user and make things run more smoothly that it is in yours and my interest to set scaled prices. Want to bet that even if they did that, that it wouldn't change a thing. You would still get junk and they would find an excuse to account for it. They need to keep things just the way they are because they are just as guilty of invading the net with all that junk. They couldn't very well explain doing it to you after they changed things now could they.

[Thabor]

Great.. Scare tactics on the internet. Can you show us even a handful of people who have been prosecuted for running bot nets? You can't.. Have the ISPs been able to protect people from viruses? Not if 28% of computers are infected they haven't. The only solution to bot nets is computer literacy. And spam isn't generated without passing through an ISP somewhere before it makes it to the internet in the first place..

Allowing ISPs to determine what content you can receive doesn't protect anyone. is just a license for them to erect more monopolies on top of their network dominance.

[ScreenName05]

Wrong on so many levels. A botnet does not pass its spam through an ISP mail server, it uses the captured PC to act as a mail server. All the ISP sees is traffic from one of its customers, and the type of intrusion that they would need to inflict to stop this activity would drive you nuts. ISPs do not benefit from spam, pop-ups, etc. these are very real costs that do get passed on to you the consumer, but the ISP doesn't make a dime. The real beneficiary is the broadband providers who get to sell larger and larger chunks of broadband that immediately gets eaten up to send you even more spam and pop-ups. The increases to cost are just being passed on to you the consumer, so why help to protect the crooks, just so you can pay a higher bill for nothing?

[GardenerNorCal]

"On the other hand we have kept the Internet safe for American marketers who need to get in your pants to get your wallet even if they are in Russia, or North Korea, or Rawanda, or"

This sounds just like the arguments against a public health care system...can it be it's being brought to us by the same marketers?

I can protect my own computer from malicious sites thank you I don't need corporations censoring what I can view or not.

[rjmiller]

The reason for the Open Internet initiative has nothing to do with marketers and email spam. It has to do with bandwidth throttling. People are watching media on their computers in bigger and bigger numbers. This presents both a problem and an opportunity for ISPs.

Problem: The major ISPs also provide TV service. If you download/stream all of your shows (like I do), you aren't watching TV and they are losing customers. This is one reason Comcast started slowing down bittorrent connections (the bandwidth management reasons are false, it has been repeatedly shown that it is cheaper to add more capacity than it is to slow down your current traffic).

Opportunity: If bandwidth throttling becomes the norm, online content providers could start partnerships with the ISPs. Maybe Hulu and YouTube throw down a billion dollars and their feeds stay unlimited but Vimeo, Pandora and Dailymotion all get set max speeds of 50Kb/s. Who's going to wait a half hour to watch a show on one site when its instantaneous on another?

[iblogleft]

They want to divide the bandwidth so they can sell it like electricity. We have one of the worst broadband systems in the nation because bandwidth providers do not want there too be too much, not because it costs a lot more, but because a lack of bandwidth allows higher prices.

They wish to control bandwidth like De Beers does diamonds. Keep supply low (even though there is a massive amount on hand) in order to maintain 400% markups.

So while you still rely on dial-up, or an iffy cable connection, South Korea reaps the benefits of an open 5 gigabit connection that is 100 times what we have in America. Ain't capitalism grand?

[GardenerNorCal]

Yeah Enron was working on just a way to charge for bandwidth before their house of cards fell apart. We sold our analog tv waves to this corporate greed system. If we don't put the breaks on with past FISA legislation and this crap we'll find ourselves only visiting approved corporate friendly sites and being tracked the entire time. I don't want to see that happen.

If you haven't seen it watch Enron the Smartest Guys in the Room documentary:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413845/

It's an eye opener. And our government never closed the Enron loophole, so many are positioned to continue the same excesses.

[Artos]

I don't know how the Internet can be kept open if Corporations decide they want to censor it's use through methods that are considered legitimate such as scaled pricing. If they go this route who is to stop them. Just as so many Corporations are using various means both new and old, Internet Service Providers are ratcheting up their ability to control access by nickel and dimeing Americans to death. By scaling prices to internet speed MBPS, they will successfully keep out of the Cyberspace those they feel are a threat to the Right Wing. By dislodging liberals and curtailing their access to information and communication they can control same. This is what Corporations like Comcast and AT&T want to do. Rich Right Wingers own these firms and they know they have it in their hands to shut off the flow of communication for liberal/Pr­ogressives­. This is precisely what they need and want to do. How do we prevent that when they own these means and according to our American laws have that right?