Dear MoveOn member,



Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an Ipod? These activities,
plus MoveOn's online organizing ability, will be hurt if Congress passes
a radical law that gives giant corporations more control over the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut
Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment. Net Neutrality prevents
AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which
site pays AT&T more. Amazon doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the
right to work more properly on your computer.

If Net Neutrality is gutted, MoveOn either pays protection money to dominant
Internet providers or risks that online activism tools don't work for members.
Amazon and Google either pay protection money or risk that their websites
process slowly on your computer. That why these high-tech pioneers are
joining the fight to protect Network Neutrality¹—and you can do your part
today. 

The free and open Internet is under seige—can you sign this
petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Network Neutrality?
Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/

Then, please forward this to 3 friends. Protecting the free and open Internet is
fundamental—it affects everything. When you sign this petition, you'll be kept
informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.
Votes begin in a House committee next week.

MoveOn has already seen what happens when the Internet's gatekeepers
get too much control. Just last week, AOL blocked any email mentioning a
coalition that MoveOn is a part of, which opposes AOL's proposed "email
tax."² And last year, Canada's version of AT&T—Telus—blocked
their Internet customers from visiting a website sympathetic to workers
with whom Telus was negotiating.³



Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue. Many of them
take campaign checks from big telecom companies and are on the verge of selling out
to people like AT&T's CEO, who openly says, "The internet can't
be free."⁴

Together, we can let Congress know we are paying attention. We can make sure they listen
to our voices and the voices of people like Vint Cerf, a father of the Internet and Google's
"Chief Internet Evangelist," who recently wrote this to Congress in support
of preserving Network Neutrality:

My fear is that, as written, this bill would do great damage to the Internet as
we know it. Enshrining a rule that broadly permits network operators to discriminate
in favor of certain kinds of services and to potentially interfere with others would
place broadband operators in control of online activity...Telephone companies cannot
tell consumers who they can call; network operators should not dictate what people
can do online.⁴ 

The essence of the Internet is at risk—can you sign this
petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Network Neutrality?
Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/

Please forward to 3 others who care about this issue. Thanks for all you
do.

–Eli Pariser, Adam Green, Noah T. Winer, and the MoveOn.org Civic Action
team 

  Thursday, April 20th, 2006

• Advocacy
  groups like MoveOn—Political organizing could be slowed by a
  handful of dominant Internet providers who ask advocacy groups to pay "protection
  money" for their websites and online features to work correctly.
• Nonprofits—A
  charity's website could open at snail-speed, and online contributions could grind
  to a halt, if nonprofits can't pay dominant Internet providers for access
  to "the fast lane" of Internet service.
• Google users—Another
  search engine could pay dominant Internet providers like AT&T to guarantee the
  competing search engine opens faster than Google on your computer. 
• Innovators with
  the "next big idea"—Startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled
  out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay Internet providers for dominant
  placing on the Web. The little guy will be left in the "slow lane"
  with inferior Internet service, unable to compete.
• Ipod listeners—A
  company like Comcast could slow access to iTunes, steering you to a higher-priced
  music service that it owned. 
• Online purchasers—Companies
  could pay Internet providers to guarantee their online sales process faster
  than competitors with lower prices—distorting your choice as a consumer.
  
• Small businesses and tele-commuters—When Internet
  companies like AT&T favor their own services, you won't be able to choose more
  affordable providers for online video, teleconferencing, Internet phone calls,
  and software that connects your home computer to your office.
• Parents
  and retirees—Your choices as a consumer could
  be controlled by your Internet provider, steering you to their preferred
  services for online banking, health care information, sending photos, planning vacations,
  etc.
• Bloggers—Costs will skyrocket
  to post and share video and audio clips—silencing citizen journalists and putting
  more power in the hands of a few corporate-owned media outlets.

To sign the petition to Congress supporting "network neutrality,"
click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/

P.P.S. This excerpt from the New Yorker really sums up this issue
well.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, as a national telephone network
spread across the United States, A.T. & T. adopted a policy of "tiered access"
for businesses. Companies that paid an extra fee got better service: their customers'
calls went through immediately, were rarely disconnected, and sounded crystal-clear.
Those who didn't pony up had a harder time making calls out, and people calling them
sometimes got an "all circuits busy" response. Over time, customers gravitated
toward the higher-tier companies and away from the ones that were more difficult
to reach. In effect, A.T. & T.'s policy turned it into a corporate kingmaker.

If you've never heard about this bit of business history, there's a good reason:
it never happened. Instead, A.T. & T. had to abide by a "common carriage"
rule: it provided the same quality of service to all, and could not favor one customer
over another. But, while "tiered access" never influenced the spread of
the telephone network, it is becoming a major issue in the evolution of the Internet.

Until recently, companies that provided Internet access followed a de-facto commoncarriage
rule, usually called "network neutrality," which meant that all Web sites
got equal treatment. Network neutrality was considered so fundamental to the success
of the Net that Michael Powell, when he was chairman of the F.C.C., described it
as one of the basic rules of "Internet freedom." In the past few months,
though, companies like A.T. & T. and BellSouth have been trying to scuttle it.
In the future, Web sites that pay extra to providers could receive what BellSouth
recently called "special treatment," and those that don't could end up
in the slow lane. One day, BellSouth customers may find that, say, NBC.com loads
a lot faster than YouTube.com, and that the sites BellSouth favors just seem to run
more smoothly. Tiered access will turn the providers into Internet gatekeepers.⁴

Sources:

1. "Telecommunication Policy Proposed by Congress Must Recognize Internet
Neutrality," Letter to Senate leaders, March 23, 2006

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1653



2. "AOL Blocks Critics' E-Mails," Los Angeles Times, April 14,
2006

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1649

3. "B.C. Civil Liberties Association Denounces Blocking of Website by Telus,"
British Columbia Civil Liberties Association Statement, July 27, 2005

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1650



4. "At SBC, It's All About 'Scale and Scope," BusinessWeek, November
7, 2002

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1648

5. "Net Losses," New Yorker, March 20, 2006

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1646

6. "Don't undercut Internet access," San Francisco Chronicle
editorial, April 17, 2006

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1645