Hands Off Our Internet

Posted on January 27, 2006 in Human Rights Liberty Scoundrels

Remember when neoconservatives were spreading the rumor that Clinton was going to impose a modem tax? Even CNN got involved in spreading the falsehood. And they never did set the record straight as far as I know.

Here in America, the big telecommunications companies are lobbying to take over the Internet, to charge you for using your net. Certainly the neocons who cried for Clinton’s head because of the modem tax should be flagellating companies such as AT&T and Verizon for wanting to own what is public. But they would rather sell the Net to private kingships than have it part of the democratic — and free — commons.

Common Cause quotes several lobbyist and telecommunications CEOs on their latest Keep-Rich-Quick schemes:

Bellsouth’s William L. Smith told reporters that he would like the Internet to be turned into a “pay-for-performance marketplace” where his company would be allowed, for example, to charge Yahoo for the right to have its site load faster than Google. (Washington Post, December 1, 2005)

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg says that web applications (like search engines, online video, VoIP telephone) need to “share the cost” of broadband – broadband that’s already been paid for by the consumer. “We have to make sure that they [application providers] don’t sit on our network and chew up bandwidth. We need to pay for the pipe.” (TechWeb News, January 5, 2006)

AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre said: “What they [Google, Vonage, and others] would like to do is to use my pipes free. But I ain’t going to let them do that….Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?” (Business Week, November 7, 2005)

HDnet owner Mark Cuban thinks that “we need multiple tiers of service [on the Internet]. … I want the telcos and the cable companies …to work out a way to exchange traffic at multiple quality of service levels.” What he really wants is the right to buy off Internet providers to ensure that HDnet’s video web content works faster and better than video on other sites. (Blog Maverick, January 15, 2006)

Comcast’s David Cohen doesn’t get it. He says “network neutrality is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem.” The problem is that Internet providers like Comcast only care about their own bottom lines – not protecting the open and freewheeling nature of the Net. (Congressional Quarterly, November 11, 2005)

This affects us all in a way that the nonexistent modem tax never could. What you need to do is contact your congressional representative now. Now is the time to get the corporations off the People’s backs. The load is heavier, much heavier, than the one Reagan purported to remove back in the 1980s.

Spread the word.