I'm extremely disappointed to learn that my representative in Congress voted today against Net Neutrality. I kinda liked ol' Charlie, till today. Voted for him in several elections. Guess that's going to have to stop.Representative Joe Barton of Texas has sponsored a bill that would allow large telephone and cable companies to set priorities on traffic to certain websites. Now, I wonder what they would base those priorities on? Fees? Say it isn't so!
It's so. And Charlie Bass thinks it's a good idea. He voted for it.
So, let's say Yahoo pays AT&T a larger fee for a higher priority than Google. Suddenly, all the traffic to Google slows way down. You enter a search term, and you have to go get coffee while you wait for your results. Or, of course, you could try your search on Yahoo, which (amazing!) is very, very fast. Sorry, Google, I'm gonna have to use Yahoo from now on.
Or, let's say you keep a humble little blog. It's a form of self-expression, not a profit-making endeavor. Naturally, you're not going to pay AT&T to keep your priority right up there with Yahoo. Pretty soon, people will stop coming to your blog because it's just too darn slow. So, go ahead & express yourself, but nobody's listening.
Here are some other ways we could be affected.
Despite my personal pleas that he not support the bill, Representative Bass did support it. I rarely write to politicians, but I sent a personal email to Charlie a couple of days ago. So now next week the bill goes to the floor of the House for a vote.
It's time, people. Time for even the most apolitical of us to start making some noise. What can you do?
MoveOn.org is trying to organize the blogosphere (that's me & you!) to get the word to our representatives that we're, to put it mildly, concerned and unhappy about the prospect of this commercial activity forever changing the face of the internet. Let quality and utility determine which website gets traffic, not the money grubbers. Or, as we like to say in New Hampshire, live free or die!
Sign a petition.
Send an email.
Get a phone number and make a phone call.
Write a blog entry.
Tell all your friends.
Make noise. Make a difference. Save the internet.
4 comments:
Great posting!
You are helping to win this fight for Internet freedom!
One note, the link to ways that people are affected is http://www.savetheinternet.com/=threat ...not the equal sign.
Thanks for contributing to awareness of this issue...Adam Green
Hi,
Tim Karr here from Free Press and SavetheInternet.com. Great post. Thank you for bringing attention to this important issue. This movement is being stoked by the blogosphere. As of 11:30pm, 700 blogs are linking to the campaign. You're part of an impressive blog revolt that's alreadt shaking Capitol Hill.
One minor fix: that link to our threat page: is missing an "=". Here's the corrct link: http://www.savetheinternet.com/=threat
Oops, I see my colleague Adam beat me to it.
Thanks again
Great post. I'll definately get involved and make some noise.
Yes Yes a great post indeed. As a fellow New Hampshire resident I also called and e-mailed C. Bass on this issue. I do not often talk to poloticians either so I am sure that he recieved much correspondence on this one. Funny just yesterday I noticed that good ol' Charlie had some new competition stepping into the race.
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