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Net Neutrality 6-09-2006

June 9, 2006 by Liz

Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

House rejects Net neutrality rules

The U.S. House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it.

By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others.

Of the 421 House members who participated in the vote that took place around 6:30 p.m. PT, the vast majority of Net neutrality supporters were Democrats. Republicans represented most of the opposition.

The vote on the amendment (click for PDF) came after nearly a full day of debate on the topic, which prominent Democrats predicted would come to represent a turning point in the history of the Internet.

“The future Sergey Brins, the future Marc Andreessens, of Netscape and Google…are going to have to pay taxes” to broadband providers, said Rep. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat behind the Net neutrality amendment. This vote will change “the Internet for the rest of eternity,” he warned.

A Note to Google Users on Net Neutrality:

. . . In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.

Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.

Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight. Please call your representative (202-224-3121) and let your voice be heard. . . .

No Tolls on The Internet By Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney [via MediaCitizen]

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use — all subject to discriminatory and exclusive dealmaking with telephone and cable giants.

We would lose the opportunity to vastly expand access and distribution of independent news and community information through broadband television. More than 60 percent of Web content is created by regular people, not corporations. How will this innovation and production thrive if creators must seek permission from a cartel of network owners?

The smell of windfall profits is in the air in Washington. The phone companies are pulling out all the stops to legislate themselves monopoly power. They’re spending tens of millions of dollars on inside-the-Beltway print, radio and TV ads; high-priced lobbyists; coin-operated think tanks; and sham “Astroturf” groups — fake grass-roots operations with such Orwellian names as Hands Off the Internet and NetCompetition.org.

They’re opposed by a real grass-roots coalition of more than 700 groups, 5,000 bloggers and 750,000 individual Americans who have rallied in support of net neutrality at http://www.savetheinternet.com/ .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Filed Under: Business Life, Community, Successful Blog, Trends Tagged With: Amazon.com, astroturf, bc, ebay, Ed-Markey, Google, Google-letter, grassroots, Handsofftheinternt.com, Marc-Andreessen, Net-Neutrality, NetCompetition.org, Netscape, SavetheInternet.com, Sergey-Brin, Washington-Post

Net Neutrality 5-26-2006

May 26, 2006 by Liz

h2> Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Net Neutrality Scores A Win by Jason Lee Miller

Net Neutrality advocates got something today they haven’t been used to: a victory in Congress. The Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act, sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner and Rep. John Conyers, won the majority approval of the House Judiciary Committee, passing by a vote of 20-13.

“Today’s vote would have been unthinkable three weeks ago,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, the nonpartisan media reform group that coordinates the SavetheInternet.com Coalition.

Neutrality predictions already coming true

One of my many arguments against net neutrality legislation is that it involves the federal government in an issue with which it wasn’t involved previous. We do not currently have neutrality legislation, and the variety and size of the Internet are growing apace. We are doing very well.

I am not against neutrality as an outcome, if that is what the consumer demands. Sounds fine to me, I might even demand it too.

House Judiciary passes Net-neutrality bill

Specifically, the bipartisan bill amends the Clayton Act to require network providers to run on a nondiscriminatory basis, making it a violation for a provider to refuse to interconnect with other broadband providers and block or interfere with another’s services or content, among other things.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Filed Under: Business Life, Successful Blog, Trends Tagged With: bc, Clayton_Act, Free_Press, Internet_Freedom_and_Nondiscrimination_Act, Jim_Sensenbrenner, John_Conyers, Josh_Silver, Net_Neutrality, SavetheInternet.com

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