Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Internet Freedom and Innovation at Risk: Why Congress Must Restore Strong Net Neutrality Protection

READ THIS ONE IN ITS ENTIRETY

Net Neutrality rests on three guiding principles:

• No discrimination against lawful content. Net Neutrality ensures that Internet users have the right to access lawful websites of their choice and to post lawful content, free of discrimination or degradation by network providers. . . . .
• Equal Internet access at an equal price. Under Net Neutrality, network providers cannot give preferential treatment to their own services at the expense of competing sites consumers want to use. . . . .

.

• Consumers choose network equipment. . . . Net Neutrality prevents network providers from eliminating competing equipment by making it incompatible with their gateway. In the process, it ensures that equipment choice remains in the hands of Internet users, where it rightfully belongs

[ . . .]

In 2005, the Telecoms Captured the FCC and Eliminated Net Neutrality Protection Following the Supreme Court’s Brand X Decision.

[ . . .]

In 2006, big network providers have censored lawful content and blocked their Internet competitors:

1. Time Warner’s AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com, an advocacy campaign opposing AOL’s pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
2. BellSouth blocked its customers’ access to Myspace.com in Tennessee and Florida.
3. Cingular Wireless, run by AT&T, bars access to PayPal to make a payment on Ebay because it has struck a deal with another online payment service, which pays Cingular for that privileged status.

[ . . .]
The United States Senate is currently considering a bipartisan bill offered by Senators Olympia Snowe and Byron Dorgan, S. 2917, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act [Hyperlink to Snowe-Dorgan bill], that would restore Network Neutrality protections in place before July 2005. The Snowe-Dorgan bill requires that any content, application, or service offered through the Internet be provided on a basis that is “reasonable and non-discriminatory” and equivalent to the access, speed, quality of service, and bandwidth of services offered by network owners. It further prohibits network providers from blocking or degrading lawful Internet content. Finally, it leaves the choice for attaching legal devices to networks squarely in the hands of consumers, and not the Telecoms and cable companies.

A Telecom-sponsored alternative bill offered by Senator Ted Stevens, S. 2686, the Communications, Consumer’s Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 [hyperlink to Net Neutrality provision of Stevens bill], permits Net discrimination to continue unabated. The bill provides no protection for Internet users and entrepreneurs. Instead, it merely includes a toothless requirement that the FCC study the Internet market for five years and file annual reports to Congress on the activities of network owners. Telecoms and cable companies are spending tens of millions of dollars in ads and big-dollar contributions pushing the Stevens bill to members of Congress. They view it as a small price to pay for the billions in profits they will reap as gatekeepers for the Internet’s content and users.
[ . . .]

READ THIS ONE IN ITS ENTIRETY

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE