Times Gets Net Neutrality Right, Again

In their second editorial in less than a month, the New York Times gets it right on Net Neutrality. They join the ranks of other major US dailies — including the San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times and Houston Chronicle — that have come out in support of Internet freedom.

“The World Wide Web is the most democratic mass medium there has ever been,” writes Adam Cohen in today’s Times:

Freedom of the press, as the saying goes, belongs only to those who own one. Radio and television are controlled by those rich enough to buy a broadcast license. But anyone with an Internet-connected computer can reach out to a potential audience of billions.

Cohen writes that the Web was invented using open, decentralized architecture in a way “that allowed anyone with a computer to connect to it and begin receiving and sending information.”

This network neutrality allows for the extraordinary growth of Internet commerce and communication. Cohen writes that the blogging phenomenon is possible because individuals can create Web sites that can be seen by anyone with Internet access. He adds:

The companies fighting net neutrality have been waging a misleading campaign, with the slogan “hands off the Internet,” that tries to look like a grass-roots effort to protect the Internet in its current form. What they actually favor is stopping the government from protecting the Internet, so they can get their own hands on it.

Today’s Times’ commentary echoes an earlier editorial, which stated that the democratic Internet “would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while little-guy sites would be harder to access, and slower to navigate.”

Cohen writes that Net Neutrality forces have been gaining strength:

One group, Savetheinternet.com, says it has collected more than 700,000 signatures on a petition. Last week, a bipartisan bill favoring net neutrality, sponsored by James Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, and John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, won a surprisingly lopsided vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

Sir Tim [Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web] argues that service providers may be hurting themselves by pushing for tiered pricing. The Internet’s extraordinary growth has been fueled by the limitless vistas the Web offers surfers, bloggers and downloaders. Customers who are used to the robust, democratic Web may not pay for one that is restricted to wealthy corporate content providers.

“That’s not what we call Internet at all,” says Sir Tim. “That’s what we call cable TV.”

And that’s why the telcos and their front groups want to seize control of the Web — to net billions of dollars as the new video czars, at the expense of everyone else.

The Telcos Are Calling You

A fellow blogger at p2p blog just forwarded this tidbit on the latest telco-fueled effort to scare Americans into siding with AT&T against Net Neutrality. Be on the alert for friendly callers bearing lies about increased consumer costs.

Here’s what “k0″ had to report about this latest telco effort to deceive customers:

I just got a phone call by a nice lady that tried to persuade me that net neutrality is bad. Because there is an internet price increase coming really really soon, and Google wants me to pay for it.

The dialog went something like this:

(obligatory awkward call center pause)

Her: “Hello, I’m calling from a non profit organization called TV 4 US, and we call consumers about an upcoming internet price hike. The big internet companies, like, (small pause) Microsoft want you to pay for that. Do you think that is fair?”

Me, confused: “Uhm, what are you calling about?”

Her: “The internet is going to be more expensive, because big companies like Microsoft and Google are wasting all our bandwidth. Do you think consumers should pay for that? Or should the big companies that are wasting the bandwidth pay for that?”

At which point I tried to argue that companies use bandwidth because consumers use their services, but of course she was trained to end her call as soon as she would hit a road block.

I managed to get a little bit of information about her non profit before she hung up tho: TV 4 US apparently doesn’t have a website. Maybe they want to save some of that precious bandwidth before Google and Microsoft are gonna waste it all. But they can be reached at 888-346-1400. Just in case you want to tell them what you think about dumbing down policy issues.

Indeed, “TV 4 US” (they do have a Web site) is yet another AT&T-backed front group that is burning through telco cash to spread the lie that Net Neutrality will cost consumers.

What’s really costing consumers isn’t Net Neutrality but the phone companies’ multi-million-dollar campaign to kill it. Companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have spent tens of millions of dollars on canned phone calls, advertisements, DC lobbyists and phony front groups to squash our genuine grassroots effort.

Where do you think they get that money? That’s right. A portion of your phone bill goes towards creating campaigns that are designed to deceive consumers into acting against their best interests.

For more on the telco fictions, check out this newly released report from Free Press, Consumer Union and the Consumer Federation of America.

The Lie of the Week

Don't be fooled. Web sites like "Hands Off The Internet" are industry front groups -- the products of high-priced consultants bought and paid for by the cable and telephone industry. Companies like AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth and their trade associations are spending millions every week to mislead and misinform the American public.

Their latest attempt to hoodwink Internet users is a cutesy cartoon at www.dontregulate.org -- a clever piece of industry propaganda that is riddled with half-truths and outright lies.

The animation is an example of Stephen Colbert's "truthiness" in action. Telco giants cloak their real interests behind a populist message that sounds plausible, while undermining the work of genuine public and consumer advocates.

For more on the ad and the industry sock puppets behind it, go here or here.

Here's a quick guide to help you cut through the industry spin:

- - - - - - - - - - -

The big telecom companies say: "Is the Internet in Danger? Does the Internet need saving? It keeps getting faster. We keep getting more choices."

The truth: Right now AT&T and others want to take away your choices and control what you can do and watch online. If their high-priced lobbyists get their way in Washington, the Internet as we know it will be gone. Network Neutrality has always curbed the control of the network owners, invited competition and encouraged innovators. It's what made it possible for entrepreneurs and creative thinkers to prosper online. None of the big ideas that made the Internet the innovative engine it is today came from the cable or telephone companies.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The big telecom companies say: "Building the next generation of the Internet is going to take a lot of work and cost a lot of money. And some big corporations can't wait to use it.... They're going to make billions. But they don't want to pay anything. Instead they want to stick consumers with the whole bill."

The truth: Nobody is getting a free ride on the Internet. Any Web site or service you use on the Internet has already paid these providers to reach you -- just like you pay to send e-mail and download files. In fact, total expenses from major content and service providers to expand network capacity totaled about $10 billion last year. But the cable and phone companies want even more -- forcing content providers to pay protection money to get a spot in the fast lane. Who do you think will pay that bill? You will … big time. The costs will be passed directly to consumers. If Net Neutrality is so bad for consumers, why do ALL the major consumer groups support it and ALL the major phone companies oppose it? Who do you trust more to defend your Internet rights? Without meaningful protections of Net Neutrality, there will be less choice on the Internet and higher prices, at a time we're already falling far behind the rest of the world.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The big telecom companies say: "These corporations are asking Congress to create volumes of new regulations to control how content is delivered over the Internet. Should politicians and bureaucrats replace network administrators? It will be the first major government regulation of the Internet and it will fundamentally change how the Internet works. These big corporations and the Save the Internet campaign want the government to take control of the Internet."

The truth: There's nothing new about Net Neutrality. It has been a fundamental part of the Internet since its inception. As a tenet of communications policy, it goes back some 70 years. Only last year did the Supreme Court uphold a bad decision by the Federal Communications Commission to do away with the rules that forced cable and phone companies to open up their networks to competitors. Those rules protected Internet freedom by ensuring lots of competition (think of all the choices you've had for long distance service or dial-up Web access). In fact, these rules still protect the Internet under a temporary FCC ruling. All a Net Neutrality law would do is maintain the even playing field we've always enjoyed -- by preventing big cable and telephone corporations from taking over as gatekeepers.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The big telecom companies say: "The net neutrality issue is a fundamental question about who should control the Internet: The people or the government? And it's a fight about who's going to pay: multi-billion dollar corporations or you?"

The truth: Who should control the Internet? Now that's a good question. But the real choice we face is whether we're going to keep the good government policy that has protected Internet freedom, created a truly free market in content and services, and encouraged free speech to flourish online -- or let predatory companies like AT&T and Comcast re-write our telecommunications law and place their chokehold on online content and services. For the entire history of the Internet, Web sites and online ideas have succeeded or failed on their own merit based on decisions now made collectively by millions of users. Getting rid of Net Neutrality will hand these decisions over to a cartel of broadband barons. Do we really want Ma Bell and the Cable Guy picking the next generation of winners and losers on the Internet?

Telcos Seek to Deceive Bloggers with Cartoon

Coming to a blog near you is a telecom-sponsored advertisement dressed up as an underground cartoon. It's the latest in the ongoing campaign by large phone companies to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public.

The cartoon is a product of a front group funded by AT&T and BellSouth. The group, Hands Off the Internet, is headed by Mike McCurry, the former Clinton Press Secretary who has been widely discredited for selling out his integrity to become the telephone industry's spokesmodel.

McCurry's group is now attempting to buy its way into the blogosphere, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a misinformation campaign against network neutrality -- the principle that keeps the Internet free and open to all.

The ad and the animation it links to are an example of Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness" in action. Telco giants cloak their real interests behind a populist message that sounds plausible, while undermining the work of genuine public and consumer advocates.

No where throughout this propaganda do they identify the nation’s largest telecom companies as the money behind the production. Instead, they dress up www.dontregulate.org as an authentically amateur effort -- complete with hand-drawn cartoons, a scraggly, counter-culture net-guy as protagonist and a David vs. Goliath subtext.

They frame the issue as pitting corporations against the people, the rich guy against you, and bureaucracy against the free market. They even give the URL a “dot-org” tag to cover their corporate tracks.

They paint the SavetheInternet coalition as seeking drastic regulation of the Internet. In fact, this group of more than 500 organizations, bloggers, educators and small businesses is asking only that Congress preserve Net Neutrality, the guiding principle that has kept the Internet free and open since its beginning.

It is AT&T and BellSouth that are asking Congress to radically re-regulate the Internet by stripping Net Neutrality from the wires. It's the largest phone and cable corporations -- with their duopoly control of broadband access across more than 50 percent of America -- that pose the biggest threat to the free and fair enterprise and democratic discourse.

(These same companies have handed over to the National Security Agency the personal phone logs of tens of millions of ordinary Americans -- a betrayal of their customer privacy agreements. Now, they want us to entrust them with the Internet?)

Without Net Neutrality protections, companies like AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon will swoop in to dismantle Internet diversity in favor of websites that pay their tax for speed. Industry-supported legislation now before Congress would hand over control of the Internet to these massive telcos, allowing them to set up tollbooths along the onramps and exits of the information superhighway.

Shoved to the margins will be the small businesses, open-source innovators, bloggers, independent musicians, political organizers and everyone else who can't afford the toll.

These Web outsiders and upstarts have been the lifeblood of the Internet. Many are already creating their own animations and PSAs to call public attention to AT&T and Verizon's Internet swindle, while coming to the defense of Net Neutrality. While these homegrown videos don't have a big-money ad buy behind them, they are spreading of their own volition across the blogosphere.

This type of grassroots creativity wouldn’t stand a chance under a regime where the largest ISPs limit access to high speed Internet to the companies that pay them the most.

McCurry's powerfully deceptive cartoon is a part of this telco scheme. It’s designed to convince bloggers and net users to support a plan that goes against their best interests.

= = = = =
For a frame-by-frame debunking of the telco cartoon, visit www.savetheinternet.com/=lie

Trust AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth?

AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth want us to trust that they’ll be good stewards of Internet freedom. Meanwhile, they're selling out ordinary Americans to the National Security Agency.

A report in this morning's USA Today tells how these three carriers secretly provided to the NSA the phone call records of tens of millions of people — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime.

These companies apparently have no qualms about betraying customer trust -- or breaking federal law.

According to the report. Section 222 of the Communications Act, prohibits companies from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination, and who calls in to the number. When asked about their potentially illegal handover of this personal information, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth declined to comment, citing “national security matters.”

Now they are asking Congress to strip away Net Neutrality protections so they can become benevolent overlords of the World Wide Web.

Would you trust these corporations with your Internet?

Tom Tauke, Verizon executive vice president of public affairs thinks you should. Earlier this week, he swore up and down that the telephone giant would never deny consumers access to what they want on the Internet. Tauke said that doing so would be "akin to Starbucks hatching a plan to secretly serve customers Folgers crystals."

We're not talking about coffee, Tom. Internet freedom is not a commodity for Verizon's to sell off to the highest bidder. The only thing that Verizon is "secretly serving customers" is a lie about improved choices and innovation. And they're asking Congress to pass a law that allows them to become gatekeepers to the information superhighway.

Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth maintain networks that reach into the homes and businesses of tens of millions of Americans. These companies built this access to our private lives -- and the billions in revenues that come with it -- on a “bedrock principle” of consumer protection.

Now, that they’ve sold out this trust to help the government monitor ordinary Americans, how credible are their claims that no Net Neutrality safeguards are necessary?

McCurry Sells Out to AT&T

Deceiving the Public Is Business
As Usual for Washington Insider

How can you tell when corporations are running scared? When they wind up their coin-operated front men to unleash a tide of untruths upon the public.

For evidence, go no further than gasbag-in-chief Mike McCurry. The latest blast from this former Clinton press secretary is a frantic bid to re-align public opinion behind his new bosses at AT&T and Verizon.

The issue in question is whether Congress should preserve a concept called "net neutrality." Net neutrality is the Internet's First Amendment; it's a principle that guarantees that all Web sites and online features have unfettered access to the Internet regardless of the size of their bank accounts.

McCurry -- who is now a partner at the influential DC lobbying firm Public Strategies -- is being paid by AT&T and Verizon to spread bad information about net neutrality. In his Huffington Post piece on Monday, he attempted to paint net neutrality supporters – a left-right coalition of consumer groups, public advocates, small businesses, Internet gurus and bloggers -- as ranting lefties seeking to smother the Internet with regulation.

"The Internet has worked absent regulation," McCurry huffs, "and now you want to introduce it for a solution to what?"

This sentiment was eerily echoed in a Washington Post online op-ed by Robert E. Litan of the Brookings Institution: "Let's hope our policy-makers in Washington can resist the siren song of 'net neutrality' and keep government out of Internet regulation so that the future that beckons becomes a reality," Litan writes.

Lies and Extortion

Despite these high profile comments, this really isn't about more regulation of the Internet. That's a convenient lie being spun by McCurry and his bosses. In reality, this debate pits economic innovators, free speech advocates and anyone who enjoys Internet freedom (regardless of party) against AT&T, Verizon and their PR henchmen who are seeking government permission to re-plumb the Internet, control online innovation and stifle diversity.

In their commentary, both McCurry and Litan, have buried the lead. They fail to point out that it's precisely because of net neutrality rules that the Internet has become a revolutionary force for economic innovation, civic participation and free speech.

We've had this fundamental protection in place to guarantee nondiscrimination in the law since the birth of the Internet. At least, we used to have these rules. In the summer of 2005, an industry-friendly FCC pulled a fast one. Without any fanfare or press coverage, the FCC made a new rule that allows companies like AT&T and Verizon to discriminate, to decide what content and applications go fast, slow, or not at all.

Equality and the free market be damned.

Now, McCurry and his cohorts are attempting to paint efforts to maintain net neutrality as new and excessive government interference. In reality, the most radical regulations to have ocurred over the last year were implemented on behalf of -- not in spite of -- AT&T, Verizon and other network giants.

That's right. In the midst of the online revolution, the FCC gutted the Internet's most fundamental operating principle and handing telephone and cable companies the right to discriminate against Web sites depending on who pays them the most money. In the nine months since, the demise of net neutrality, these network owners have declared that they intend to do just that: Implement a business model based on malfeasance, extorting money from online content and applications providers in order to have their sites operate smoothly via the Web.

Given their near monopoly control of broadband access, content companies will have little choice but to pay up. Those of us who can't afford the price will be shunted to the Internet's side roads.

AT&T and Verizon's predatory scheme has little to do with free market dynamics, writes Columbia Professor Timothy Wu. It's more akin to a mafia shake down. "While it's one way to earn cash, it's just too close to the Tony Soprano vision of networking: Use your position to make threats and extract payments" Wu writes.

The Grassroots Fire

This scam is only now coming to the attention of the American public. And they're letting their elected officials know that Internet freedom cannot be sold out.

As part of a vote on new telecommunications legislation last Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Committee members defeated an amendment by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass) that would have protected net neutrality.

What's remarkable about last week's defeat is the shift that occurred on Capitol Hill in the week prior to the vote. An unlikely coalition has banded together at SavetheInternet.com and sent more than 500,000 letters to Congress. This sparked an Internet revolt among thousands of bloggers who heaped scorn upon any member of the House who dared side with companies like AT&T and Verizon.

As the legislation moves to the House floor and Senate in the coming weeks, every member of Congress has been put on alert by an awakened and angry public: Momentum is shifting away from the corporations and toward the public.

Whereas before, the big telephone companies and their McCurry-men were confident that Congress would simply roll over, today, no member of Congress can vote with the telecom cartel without suffering repercussions.

Playing Favorites, Stifling Innovation

Over the last decade, the telephone lobby has stuffed hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of lobbyists (including McCurry's company) and campaign coffers of politicians in an effort to radically rewrite communications legislation.

Now, companies like AT&T are asking Congress to fast-track a bill that grants them a monopoly right to play favorites with the content that flows online – determining what users do, where they go and what they watch online.

If Congress allows this to occur, the only sites that will enjoy "open" access are the large corporations that can afford AT&T's toll. The Internet's true innovators – small guys working out of their basements on the next big Internet idea – will be shoved aside.

The telco cartel, with the help of industry sock puppets like McCurry, would like to write this extortion into law, gutting the "net neutrality" guarantees that gave all comers equal access to the Internet.

That McCurry has emerged from behind smoke-tinted glass to throw rabbit punches at groups representing the public's interest is testament not only of the success of SavetheInternet.com, but also to the utter bankruptcy of his over-funded position.

Mother Knows Best: Save the Internet

You know that an issue has spread to the mainstream when your mom leaves a message on your answering machine urging you to go to SavetheInternet.com, immediately.

This weekend saw a flurry of blog posts about Internet freedom and net neutrality as this issue crossed over from the blogosphere to Main Street.

Here's a sampling:

The Cost in Human Terms (Russell Shaw at IP Telephony)

When your mother leaves you a message, in the same tone that she leaves you a message to remember to buy sunscreen with UVA and UVB protection, that you might want to keep your eye on legislation challenging network neutrality and to go to savetheinternet.com and publicknowledge.com, you know it's serious.

Open Source in the Political Fray (Dana Blankenhorn at Open Source)

...sites like DailyKos, Eschaton, MyDD (one example here) and (most interesting) Moveon.org have been loudest and longest on this, and their readers have responded by peppering relevant Congressional offices. I would love to see examples from FreeRepublic, RedState or Lucianne of bloggers flogging their friends to keep access to their sites free and open.

Save the Internet (Balo's Life Blog)

Net Neutrality is, to borrow a phrase from savetheinternet.com, "The First Amendment" of the Internet, ensuring that giant companies like AT&T [CEO Ed Whitacre pictured above] and Verizon can't restrict your access to some websites. Without this, any sites they don't like will load slower, or not at all. Therefore, this would end the Internet as we know it, changing the greatest free speech mechanism the world has ever seen into little more than a corporate pigsty.

Support the Markey Amendment (David Isenberg at isen.blog)

Here comes a BAD LAW and you can oppose it, maybe even make it better. You want the Internet to be 57 Billion URLs with Nothing On? OK, then act.

Internet (As We Know It) in Peril (CS at Mentalwire)

The good news in all of this is that civic action has brought this issue to the forefront, and I am proud to say that my representative - Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), voted in favor of net neutrality. Thanks Mrs. Shakowsky! You are an inspiration to the democratic process.

The Entire U.S Wants Net Neutrality (Doug Ross at DirectorBlue)

Ever wonder why the telcos spend so much on lobbyists rather than, oh I don't know, value-creating new applications like Skype and Vonage? For the love of... And don't think for a second that killing net neutrality isn't a huge issue. It has already happened in Canada and the results weren't pretty.

Internet Freedom is the American Way

Can a groundswell of popular support for network neutrality save free speech online? Radio show "Media Minutes" asks whether the SavetheInternet coalition has the momentum to turn public opinion against AT&T and their coin-operated front men in Washington.

Listen to the show.

Gun Owners of America’s Craig Fields puts it best:

“In a very, very strange situation, what we have is the necessity of government intervention to ensure a free marketplace of ideas. Whenever you see people from the far left and the far right joining together about something that Congress is getting ready to do, it’s been my experience that what Congress is getting ready to do is basically un-American.”

Columbia Professor Timothy Wu gives an historical perspective by comparing AT&T’s net control scheme to the AP’s 19th century news monopoly, calling it “a threat not only to American business and competition but a threat to American democracy.”

The loss of network neutrality will smother the innovative nature of the Internet, which has made it such a powerful economic and social engine. Warns Professor Wu:

“It’s no longer survival of the fittest. It’s no longer who has the best technology. It’s a question of who goes golfing with the CEO of AT&T. And I think that’s not the American way.”

Indeed. Listen in.

Bloggers Take Internet Fight to the Hill

Story published at TomPaine.com

AS OF THIS MORNING, more than 1,500 blogs have taken up a new cause, posting links to SavetheInternet.com and urging their readers to call on members of Congress to stand firm in defense of Internet freedom.

And, for the first time in blogger history, the Hill is hearing it.

The cyberstorm is over “Net Neutrality,” the principle that prevents large telephone and cable companies from controlling what we do, where we go and what we watch online. As part of a vote on new telecommunications legislation on Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Committee members defeated an amendment by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass) that would have protected net neutrality by a count of 34-22.

What's remarkable about this result is the shift that occurred on Capitol Hill in the week prior to the vote. An unlikely coalition of political activists from the right and left, consumers groups, bloggers and Internet gurus banded together at SavetheInternet.com and sent more than 250,000 letters to Congress. This sparked an Internet revolt among bloggers who heaped scorn upon any member of the House who dared side with companies like AT&T and Verizon, which are spending millions of dollars in Washington to dismantle any rules that would prevent them from controlling Internet content.

When it came time to vote on Markey's amendment, two Democrats on the committee switched their previous votes to favor net neutrality, and several others who were undecided voted for the amendment, citing the explosion in public interest on the issue.

More elected officials on both sides of the aisle, in both the House and the Senate are now monitoring the pulse of the blogosphere as this issue spreads offline.

"We would not have turned the corner in this fight without your blogs, your voices," Congressman Markey said yesterday during a teleconference with bloggers. "We need to put every members of Congress on record on where they stand on the future of the Internet," Markey said. That momentum has shifted in Congress, he continued, "is a reflection of the rumbling in cyberspace about what's going on with this bill."

Bloggers from left, right and center, including DailyKos, BuzzMachine, Atrios, Instapundit and even actress Alyssa Milano, called on their readers to pay very close attention to this issue. They’ve urged everybody to go after any elected representative who ignores the public interest in favor of the well-heeled telephone and cable lobbyists that have swarmed Capitol Hill as representatives attempt to rewrite telecommunications law.

Undaunted by the Committee defeat, Markey is now rallying colleagues on the left and the right to support the introduction of his Network Neutrality Amendment onto the full floor of the House next week.

But it's an uphill battle. For the amendment to be voted upon by all members, it has to first get passed the House's gatekeepers on the , which Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi calls, "the free world's outstanding bureaucratic abomination -- a tiny, airless closet deep in the labyrinth of the Capitol where some of the very meanest people on earth spend their days cleaning democracy like a fish."

This 13 member committee (nine Republicans and four Democrats) holds the congressional agenda in its grip. If Rules votes down your amendment, your amendment is DOA. Bloggers are banding together to ensure that no Member of Congress gets off the hook that easily.

"There's a white hot firestorm on the issue on Capitol Hill," Matt Stoller said in a post at MyDD. "No one wants to see the telcos make a radical change to the Internet and screw this medium up, except, well, the telcos."

Politicians get scared when they realize the public is paying attention. As the blogosphere catches fire, momentum is shifting in Washington. Whereas before, the big telephone companies and their coin-operated lobbyists were confident that Congress would simply roll over and do their bidding, today, no member of Congress can vote with the telecom cartel without suffering repercussions.

Thanks to bloggers, the public is now watching and, with increasing frequency and volume, the message is getting through to Congress: we will not stand for any law that threatens Internet freedom.

Congress is Selling Out the Internet

Apologies for the radio silence at MediaCitizen. All of the action is happening over at the SavetheInternet.com campaign. Click on the button to the right and you will be magically whisked away.

Free Press has joined with an unlikely collection of groups, including the Gun Owners of America, American Library Association, Parents Television Council and MoveOn in the fight to defend the Internet's First Amendment -- a principle called network neutrality that safeguards the free and open internet.

Here are two MediaCitizen updates:

Internet Freedom Is the American Way (April 29)
Blogger Take Internet Fight to the Hill (April 28)

AOL Censors Opposition Group

Company Lifts Email Block After Activists Cry Foul

AOL was caught red-handed today censoring email to its customers that included a link to a site opposing the company's proposed "email tax."

Over 300 people reported that they had tried sending AOL subscribers messages that contained a link to www.DearAOL.com, but received a bounceback message informing them that their email "failed permanently."

After the DearAOL.com Coalition -- 600 organizations convened by Free Press, MoveOn and EFF -- notified the press of this blocking, AOL quickly cleared the opposition URL from their filters, alleging a "software glitch."

Today’s events prove the DearAOL.com Coalition’s point entirely: Left to their own devices, AOL will always put its own self interest ahead of the public interest. AOL wants us to believe they won’t hurt free email when their pay-to-send system is up and running. But if AOL is willing to censor the flow of information to silence their critics, today, how could anyone trust that they will preserve the free and open internet down the road?

(Pic: AOL CEO Jonathan Miller)

Here are some comments from people who experienced AOLs censorship and then tested it after AOL had reversed themselves:

Christina Lee, Atlanta Georgia :

“My email went through late this afternoon, but earlier today when I sent the same email with the link ‘DearAOL.com’ in it, it was blocked. Proof of why AOL should NOT be allowed to tax emails -- they do NOT have the best interest of their customers in mind if they think they can decide what their customers can or cannot read.”

Eve Fox, Washington, DC:

"They obviously stopped blocking the emails with DearAOL.com in them. Their behavior is a perfect example of why Goodmail is such a bad idea. That type of control and interference threatens the inherent democracy of the Internet."

Seth Hall, Massachusetts:

"After having my email to a family member blocked earlier today (April 13), the same message seems to have been delivered successfully just now, 2.5 hours later…Whether AOL has modified their errant ways or not, this example of filtering is a powerful reminder of just how dangerous it is to allow large corporate, profit driven entities to manipulate our Internet resources, especially when the public interest competes directly with their own private interests.”

AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham is now telling the media that censoring www.DearAOL.com was an innocent mistake. After lifting the block, Graham attributed the issue to a technical mishap that "affected dozens of Web links in messages," including www.Dearaol.com.

"We discovered the issue early this morning, and our postmaster and mail operations team started working to identify this software glitch," he told CNet News.

Others are more skeptical. "I forwarded www.DearAOL.com to my own AOL account and it was censored. Apparently I can't even tell myself about it," said Kelly Tessitore, an AOL customer from Massachusetts.

According to EFF's Danny O'Brien, ISPs like AOL can silently ban huge swathes of legitimate mail for the flimsiest of reasons. The problem is that no-one hears about it.

It's only when DearAOL users cried foul, that this censorship came to light. This begs the question: how many other emails with important information have been barred by AOL?

AOL is part of the Time Warner, the media colossus that also runs the nation's second largest broadband cable provider. Time Warner is actively lobbying Congress -- alongside the nation's other cable and telephone giants -- to do away with protections that preserve the Internet's open architecture. These regulatory principles, called "network neutrality" are the only guarantee that users have unfettered access to the content and services of their choice.

AOL's actions today should put everyone on alert against network giants promising to be good stewards of a free and open Internet.

The DearAOL.com Coalition collectively represents over 15 million people – and has grown from 50 member organizations to 600 in a month. Since the beginning of the DearAOL.com campaign, more than 350,000 Internet users have signed DearAOL.com letters opposing AOLs pay-to-send email proposal. Coalition members include craigslist founder Craig Newmark, the Association of Cancer Online Resources, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org Civic Action, Gun Owners of America, and others.

America's Fake News Pandemic

A report released yesterday by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and Free Press exposes corporate propaganda's infiltration of local television news across the country.

The Center, which authored the report, monitored local news broadcasts for 10 months and caught 77 local stations that had slipped corporate-sponsored “video news releases” — segments promoting commercial brands and products — into their regular news programming. These advertisements were dressed up as real news and passed off to unsuspecting viewers as legitimate. At no time during the airing, did the local correspondents reveal the corporations as the source of the material.

Collectively, the stations implicated in the report reach more than half of the U.S. population.

This illegal deception is a breach of the trust between local stations and their communities. By disguising advertisements as news, stations violate both the spirit and the letter of their broadcasting licenses, which obligate them to serve the public interest.

During a press conference yesterday FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein called for "vigorous enforcement" against stations that air this corporate propaganda without revealing the source to their viewers. "Failure to disclose that to the public is a violation of federal law and in fact can be subject to criminal penalties of up to a year in jail," Adelstein said during a radio interview earlier in the day.

Despite repeated claims from broadcasters that they do not air VNRs as news, the new report reveals just the tip of the iceberg. Instances of fake TV news documented by CMD likely represent less than 1 percent of VNRs distributed to local newsrooms since June 2005. Fraudulent news reports have likely been aired on hundreds of more local newscasts in the past year.

Some instances:

Sinclair Terrorizes with ‘I-Porn’

Faux tech-expert Robin Raskin offers video games as the antidote to “scary” pornographic i-Pods. What Raskin doesn’t mention is that she’s on the payroll of the companies whose products she’s pushing.

(View the original VNR and then then click on the image at right to see how Sinclair-owned WPGH in Pittsburgh faked it.)

Clear Channel Delivers a Placebo

Carrie Lazarus hails a dietary supplement as a “major health breakthrough” for arthritis sufferers. She fails to point out that the sponsor of the VNR manufactures the supplement, nor mention that it barely outperforms a placebo.

(View the original VNR and then see how Clear Channel-owned WSYR in Syracuse faked it).

Fox Sweetens the Pitch

“Parenting expert” Julie Edelman advises viewers to throw a “Hide and Glow” scavenger hunt featuring brand-name M&M candies. What the station didn’t reveal is that it lifted the entire segment from a VNR co-funded by Masterfoods -- formerly the M&M/Mars Company.

(View the original VNR and then see how Fox's KTVI-3 in St. Louis faked it).

You can find instances of fake news in your community, by visiting the Free Press map of all the VNR stations exposed by the CMD report.

Approximately 80 percent of the stations snared in the investigation are owned by large conglomerates. The list of the worst offenders reads like a who's who of big media: Clear Channel, News Corp./Fox Television, Viacom/CBS Corp, Tribune Co. and Sinclair Broadcast Group — whose Oklahoma City affiliate was caught airing VNRs on six separate occasions.

The evidence draws a clear line between media consolidation and the broadcast of deceptive, pre-packaged propaganda. When all station owners care about is the bottom line, fake news can prove irresistible.

There’s a reason for this: VNRs are free. Reporting news that’s meaningful to local communities isn’t. By opting to air a VNR instead of sending a reporter into the field, station owners save a fortune. Corporate PR firms offer local stations VNRs knowing there’s a built-in incentive to use them. By dressing up fake news as local reporting, stations cut costs and increase profits.

On April 6, Free Press and CMD delivered a formal complaint to the FCC, urging the agency to take immediate and strong action to stop this widespread abuse. The complaint calls on Chairman Kevin Martin to determine whether station consolidation has contributed directly to the potentially illegal proliferation of fake news. This FCC inquiry must happen before the Commission reconsiders its rulings on broadcast ownership, according to the complaint.

Free Press has asked the public to get involved. Today, thousands of our members and other outraged Americans are writing the FCC to demand an end to fake news.

Fake News in Your Town

Follows is my statement during a press conference with FCC Commissioner Adelstein and our allies at the Center for Media and Democracy:

Thank you Commissioner Adelstein for being such an important advocate on the side of honest media in the United States. This campaign against fake news was inspired by your unyielding efforts at the FCC.

And thank you to John, Diane, Dan and the rest of the crew at the Center for Media and Democracy. Your dogged pursuit of video news releases has resulted in a groundbreaking report that skewers the myths perpetuated by broadcast companies.

Well, the cat’s out of the bag. What many Americans suspected of their local newscasts appears to be true. Stations across the country are being compromised by commercial propaganda dressed up as real news.

The Center’s “Fake TV News” report reveals only the tip of the iceberg. Instances of fake TV news documented by CMD likely represent less than 1 percent of VNRs distributed to local newsrooms during the investigation. This disgraceful practice has infected American broadcast journalism across the spectrum.

Over the last year, Free Press, the Center and our activists have been tracking counterfeit news from town to town and pressuring lawmakers on The Hill and regulators at the FCC to crack down against news fraud:

• Last January – after news reports exposed Armstrong Williams for accepting government payments to flog Department of Education programs over the air -- thousands of Free Press members sent letters to the Commission demanding an investigation. Soon thereafter, then-Chairman Michael Powell launched a probe of Williams and broadcasters.
  
  
• Last March -- after a New York Times report found hundreds of government-produced video news releases aired on local stations across the country -- more than 40,000 Free Press activists sent letters to the Commission asking the agency to investigate those who truck in fake news reports without disclosure. Soon thereafter, the Commission issued a "Public Notice" calling on all television newscasters to clearly disclose the origin of VNRs used on their programs.
  
  
• Last June -- after commentators on NBC’s "Today" show were revealed to be promoting products on the program without disclosing financial ties to the manufacturer -- Free Press filed a FCC complaint asking that the Commission "got to the bottom of this practice, identified violators, and improved the effectiveness of the rules and the thoroughness of their enforcement."
  

Today we delivered a formal complaint to the FCC seeking a thorough investigation "to help restore the public trust in the integrity of local news." We have reached out to Americans urging them to pres the FCC "to investigate this abuse, clarify disclosure requirements and penalize all stations that air fake news."

But the problem doesn't end there. We have also asked the Commission to investigate clear ties between consolidation of local station ownership and the pandemic of television VNRs.

More than 80 percent of the stations captured in the CMD investigation are conglomerate-owned. A list of the worst possible offenders includes stations owned by Sinclair, News Corp, Clear Channel, Tribune Company and CBS Corp.

Before Chairman Martin reconsiders the Commission's rulings on broadcast ownership, he should determine whether station consolidation has contributed directly to the potentially illegal proliferation of fake news.

When station owners only care about the bottom line, fake news can prove irresistible. After all, VNRs are free. Reporting news that’s meaningful to local communities isn’t. And without decisive government action, the fake news problem will only get worse.

As our “No Fake News” campaign moves forward, Free Press is asking the public to get involved. Today, thousands of our members and other outraged Americans are writing the FCC to demand an end to fake news.

The public trust has been betrayed.

This great scandal can no longer be ignored.

Press and Propaganda: Together at Last

"Today Show" anchor in waiting Campbell Brown exchanged vows Sunday with Fox News analyst Dan Senor.

A marriage between journalists, right? Well, sort of. Senor's pedigree suggests that their's is a union of a different order.

Before winning Campbell's heart and mind, Senor was busy doing the same with the American public.

His position at Fox began in early 2005. Before that -- during Operation Iraqi Freedom -- he was Director of the Coalition Information Center, based at Centcom Headquarters in Qatar. Under Senor, Centcom daily press briefings gave new meaning to the phrase "theater of war." For more, read Michael Wolff.

Senor then moved on to serve as the White House's senior spokesperson for U.S. Presidential Envoy Paul Bremmer in Iraq, where among other things he defended the Coalition Provisional Authority's closure and censorship of Iraqi papers.

After six months in Baghdad, Senor returned to Washington where the White House placed him at the front lines of their domestic information war.

Here are some of Senor's responses to questions put to him during an "Ask the White House" session in October 2003.

To a question from "Erica" about the fate of Iraqi children:

". . . The good news is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqi people have embraced the liberation and are grateful for all we are doing to reconstruct their country. This is critical not only for the freedom of the Iraqi people but also for our overall success in the war on terror."

To questions from "Jared" about negative media reports from Iraq:

"This new Iraqi army will not be engaged in repression of the Iraqi people and posing a threat to America and the international community. It will be focused on protecting Iraq’s borders and helping us and assisting American forces in the war on terror. In addition, today all of Iraq’s 240 hospitals are open, 90 percent of (Iraq's health clinics are open). When Ambassador Bremer arrived, he said that we would meet pre-war electricity levels within a few months -- just a few days ago, we exceeded pre-war electricity generation levels."

To questions from "Jared" about negative media reports from Iraq:

"Iraq is now a central front in the war on terror. Saddam Hussein's government was a state sponsor of terrorism. His government used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. There are terrorists in Iraq today engaging US forces because they know that if we are successful in building a free government in Iraq at peace with its own citizens, with its neighbors and serves as a model for the region and is no longer a threat to the United States, then the terrorists’ days are numbered. If we choose to ignore terrorists in Iraq we will wind up hearing from them on our own soil."

That last sentence sounds awfully familiar. I wonder if that's the line that won Campbell's heart.

Neutral Debate

The following are responses to my story, "AT&T Wants to Reach Out and Control You," which was posted by the good people at the new media blog Morph. I have responded to all of the comments made there. And copied the debate below.

It's clear from this that many misunderstand the history of the Internet and in doing so downplay the threat posed by the loss of a neutral platform. I hope we can clear up this confusion and move on to doing what urgently needs to be done:

Posted by: Paulaner01 March 22, 2006 08:48 PM

From a global perspective, how are we supposed to keep up with countries like Finland, Japan, and South Korea if we're going to have our government slowing everything down? I for one don't see new laws and regulations as the solutions to making up the ground we've lost. A manufactured crisis would set us back even further, for no reason.

Reply: It's precisely because of carefully crafted regulations, public partnerships and incentive programs that countries like Finland, Japan, South Korea and even Canada have outpaced the U.S. in bringing broadband to their citizenry. For more on that, I suggest you read "Broadband Reality Check" or Thomas Bleha's excellent article in Foreign Affairs, " Down to the Wire."

The crisis in America is real. Certain communities have found themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide -- ignored by market incumbents who don't see profits in "reaching out and touching" low income or rural populations. Don't belive it? Read "Broadband Reality Check" (above) or "Are We Really a Nation Online?"

Posted by: John Rice March 21, 2006 10:05 PM

This is a provocative piece, but there are some serious inconsistencies. How about some documentation of the claims that these other countries have faster connections at lower prices? And...the scare tactics fail to pass a straight face test. There are anti-trust laws that would prevent companies from "cut (ting) off your Internet phone unless you use their service; or force you to download MP3s from his company store by slowing access to outside music sites like ITunes."

Reply to John: Anti-trust laws won't save the Internet from the cabal of large telecom and cable companies that have built their revenue projections upon a plan to tilt the Net to their favor. The Internet's future as a force for change will dim as soon as these network giants are allowed to manipulate the "pipe" and discriminate on behalf of their products and services.

By destroying the level playing field, they will shut down the outsiders, boot strappers and innovators (the Stanford kids who created Google, the Pez hobbyist who wrote the concept for eBay, the Israeli high school student who created the first Instant Messaging service, the Indian programmers who created Hotmail, etc.) whose ideas have revolutionized and democratized all media. For more, read Jeff Chester's reporting at Center for Digital Democracy and Larry Lessig's Congressional testimony posted at his blog.

There's extensive documentation that other developed countries now provide broadband to their citizens at a far lower cost-per-bandwidth ratio than the United States. For more, read Derek Turner's excellent summary at Salon.com, and this recent report out of Europe. I have access to some of Derek's research. I can share this should we decide to explore the comparison between U.S. broadband and that of other developed countries.

Posted by: oldhats March 21, 2006 08:50 PM

If thousands of people were to log-on tomorrow and Google or iTunes was suddenly inaccessible, don't you think the large majority would take their business elsewhere? The telcos have said very plainly that they will not limit or degrade service on their networks. And even if you don't take them at their word, you have to assume that they know the market would punish SEVERELY the company that tried.

Reply to Oldhats: Your argument assumes that there are other broadband choices in a given market. According to a report last August by Free Press, more than 50 percent of the country has only one or no choice of broadband provider. In a large portion of remaining markets there is only a choice of a dominant telephone company (DSL) and a dominant cable provider. The largest of these have all stated plainly that they see no need for network neutrality rules. For the majority of net users in America, then, what real choices are left?

Posted by: AJ Carey March 21, 2006 07:06 PM

There is absolutely no record of any sort of site blocking or any clear plan by so-called "evil" telecoms to filter the internet. First of all it would be terrible for business: no one would stand for it. And that's the real point. Competetion is what has lead to the success of the internet. Why stop that now?

Reply to AJ Carey: Errr . . . yes, there absolutely is a record. Here are two instances that come immediately to mind (I have more): 1. In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service; 2. In 2005, Canada’s telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.

Posted by: lessgov March 20, 2006 10:24 PM

Villains and victims? That seems awfully presumptuous. Thus far, we have seen no instances of the sort of "site-blocking" practices you describe. People feel very strongly about the Internet remaining a free marketplace of ideas. But this marketplace has been maintained in spite of (and, often because of) the enormous profits that can be reaped from the technology. It has also been maintained because our government (who, as we have seen, has interests of its own) has kept its mitts off the Internet. That is the key to keeping the Internet free and viable for years to come.

Reply to LessGov: This notion -- that the Internet has evolved with the succor of a free market eco-system -- is one of the great myths of its brief history. The Internet itself is a byproduct of government grants and oversight. Until very recently, it had been governed, like all telecommunications services, by a rule of common carriage.

What I am calling for here is not new regulation of the Internet. What's happened is that there has been a radical change in the underlying regulatory infrastructure for telecommunications. Last August the FCC took the final step to remove those principals of common carriage and neutrality from any part of the broadband network.

That neutrality principle has been central to guaranteeing that outsiders face few technical obstacles to build new applications and content for the Internet. Most of the major innovations in the history of the Internet have been made by outsiders -- often kids and non-Americans. That's because the architecture of the Internet, built upon this value of end-to-end neutrality, invited outsiders in to innovate. Now this neutrality -- again, a concept of common carriage that has regulated telecommunications for decades -- is threatened by efforts of AT&T and other large corporations to rewrite the rules.

What will happen if they succeed in removing neutrality from the network? The largest ISPs will auction off the highest value chunks of the broadband network to the highest bidders. The next generation of revolutionary applications and services will find it virtually impossible to compete against those offered by network giants. New media will begin to look like old media, with a few large corporations controlling the ebb and flow of content and services, as diversity and innovation gets pushed to the margins.

This threat to the Internet is not a myth. Unless we make more of an effort to guard against plans to dismantle network neutrality, the Internet's future isn't nearly as open, free and bright as you might think.

AT&T Wants to Reach Out and Control You

Behind the story of the AT&T-BellSouth merger is a tale about the future of all media. It has villains and victims; intrigue and peril, and -- if the public doesn’t speak up soon -- could spell the end of Internet freedom as we know it.

The aim of AT&T’s $67 billion deal is to create a network giant with nationwide reach controlling nearly half of all telephone land lines in the United States. But the real danger is the control AT&T would gain over access to high-speed Internet services.

Soon all electronic media -- telephone calls, TV, radio and the Web -- will reach your home via a broadband Internet connection. The few corporations trying to control this “pipe” – and the hundreds of billions of dollars at stake -- are racing to gobble up as many competitors as possible before consumers make the digital media shift. Verizon’s $8.5 billion purchase of MCI in January is one other episode in the merger mania that has seized the telecommunications sector.

The new AT&T -- which already includes what used to be SBC -- would create the nation’s largest high-speed Internet provider. According to company chief Ed Whitacre, this behemoth would “benefit customers through new services and expanded service capabilities” with “innovative, competitively priced products.”

But experience shows that bigger is rarely better. As large companies merge and jockey for position over the lucrative broadband market, average Americans will suffer from the fallout – especially those living in rural or poorer urban areas.

These corporations have done a lousy job rolling out their services to remote communities and low-income neighborhoods they've deemed unprofitable. This is why nearly half of all Americans have just one option for high-speed Internet service or can’t get broadband at all.

In other countries, the cost of broadband has dropped dramatically as speeds and choices have increased. Nations such as South Korea, Japan, Finland and even Canada have much faster Internet connections at lower prices than what is available here. As a result, America has fallen from third to 16th place in penetration of broadband per capita.

Not only are Americans being offered limited choices at higher costs, but now the companies that provide access also want to control the content and services that are delivered to customers. Whitacre recently alarmed consumer advocates and Internet entrepreneurs alike by dismissing the principle of "network neutrality" -- a standard that ensures all users can access the online content or run the applications and devices of their choice without interference from their Internet service providers.

If Whitacre gets his way, AT&T could cut off your Internet phone unless you use their service; or force you to download MP3s from his company store by slowing access to outside music sites like ITunes. Those controlling the pipes could also charge you extra to guarantee that your email gets past their spam filters.

The network giants are trying to make your Web experience look like cable TV, where you pay for a limited selection of programs that they select, own or control. These types of package schemes would stifle the Internet’s revolutionary ability to spread new ideas, serve marginalized communities, spark business innovation and encourage democratic discourse.

A standard of nondiscrimination has been in the DNA of the Internet since its inception. The network’s only job should be to move data — not to choose which data to privilege with higher quality of service. The brilliance of the end-to-end network is that the intelligence is at the edge of the network, with you and me, and the wires in between simply pass along the information.

As large communications companies maneuver to control and profit from broadband, they seek to dismantle the Internet freedoms that stand in their way. Without network neutrality, the network owners would have a business incentive to discriminate in favor of their own services and content by making them download faster or simply blocking their competitors. This discrimination is already built into the business plans of the largest providers.

The AT&T merger would spread the corporate gospel of Internet discrimination into more than half of the nation's broadband markets.

Thanks to AT&T's legions of lobbyists, some predict this merger will sail through Washington. But with so much at stake, perhaps it’s time for our regulators and representatives to put away their rubber stamps and say enough is enough.

Without Internet freedom guarantees, new media will soon become ruled by the same lumbering, discriminatory corporations that dominate old media.

The New Media Monopoly

Originally published at AlterNet

The race is on to control the future of American media. Unfortunately, those vying for the prize are a limited cadre of corporations hostile to the public interest.

On one hand, there are the remnants of the 1984 breakup of Ma Bell -- four formerly Baby Bells that now dominate the multibillion-dollar marketplace for telecommunications. Over the past 10 years, these have rapidly morphed into massive corporations by swallowing up smaller competitors and positioning themselves atop the heap.

AT&T's announcement earlier this week that it plans to acquire BellSouth is a stunning development in the unrelenting shift toward fewer choices and bigger companies -- essentially stitching back together the monopoly that ruled telecommunications three decades ago.

The aim of AT&T's $67 billion merger is to assemble a new behemoth to dominate the "triple play" of modern communications: voice, video and data. In the near future, all new media -- telephone calls, radio, television or the web -- will travel via a broadband connection to your home. The corporations that control this network are racing to gobble up as many competitors as possible before consumers complete the new media shift.

Left behind, of course, is the American public. As large telecom companies merge and jockey for position with the cable industry over the most lucrative broadband markets, the communities at the edges have been left on the wrong side of the digital divide.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 60 percent of households with incomes over $150,000 annually have broadband access, compared to just 10 percent of households with incomes below $25,000.

These corporations have done a lousy job rolling out their services to rural areas and low-income urban communities they've deemed unprofitable. As a result, America has fallen from third to 16th place in penetration of high-speed internet services per capita.

But even those who can afford to pay for connectivity are increasingly subject to limited choices at higher prices. According to a Free Press report late last year, the number of Americans who have only one or no choice of broadband provider is near 50 percent.

Meanwhile, the cost of broadband in other countries has dropped dramatically as speeds have increased. On a per megabit basis, U.S. consumers pay five to 25 times more than broadband users in France and Japan. Nations such as South Korea, Finland, and even Canada have much faster internet connections at a lower cost than what is available here.

Not only are Americans being offered limited choices at higher costs than other countries, the cable and telecom companies that control access to the "pipes" now want to control the content and services that are delivered to customers.

Consumer advocates and internet rights groups are especially concerned about AT&T chief executive Edward Whitacre's outspoken resistance to the principle of "network neutrality," a standard that ensures all users can access the content or run the applications and devices of their choice without discrimination from internet service providers.

"I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network," Whitacre told the Financial Times earlier this year. "Now they might pass it on to their customers who are looking at a movie, for example. But that ought to be a cost of doing business for them. They shouldn't get on [the network] and expect a free ride."

In December, BellSouth's William Smith told reporters that he would like to turn the internet into a "pay-for-performance marketplace," where his company could charge for the "right" to have certain services load faster than others.

What this would mean for you is higher costs, fewer choices and less control.

AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and others could block you from viewing a favorite podcast or blog, cut off internet phones unless we use their service, or force you to download MP3s from their company store by slowing access to outside music sites. The profit motive of a few corporations would supplant the freedoms of all users, determining which features end up shaping our digital future.

These types of corporate schemes discriminate against those of us who rely on the internet as an accessible tool to spread new ideas, spark innovation and encourage dissent.

Now AT&T executives are asking regulators at the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission to rubber stamp their merger. They argue, incredulously, that bigger is better for consumers.

At a moment marked by America's precipitous decline in the global ranks of communications leaders, the Justice Department and FCC should correct our problems -- not exacerbate them. This merger must be stopped.

AOL Admits Defeat in War on Spam

Today, an unlikely coalition of more than 50 groups, representing some 15 million people, launched a campaign to fight AOL's new pay-to-send email scheme.

In addition to Free Press and Electronic Frontier Foundation, coalition members include Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, MoveOn.org, Gun Owners of America, the Association of Cancer Online Resources, the Humane Society, the AFL-CIO, RightMarch and others.

Cumulatively, these groups count more than 3 million AOL subscribers as members, or in excess of 15 percent of AOL's customer base.

While the organizations occupy almost every corner of the political landscape, we're united in opposition to AOL's plan to make large group e-mailers pay to bypass the email service's Swiss cheese spam filters and get guaranteed delivery to the inboxes of AOL customers.

AOL's Spam on Spam

AOL's pay-to-send plan is the latest media snake-oil scheme, designed to give users the impression of improved service while serving no one but the company’s bottom line.

In fact, the AOL pay-to-send plan could make spam worse. As AOL turns its attention to revenue generating email it has a cash inducement to let its free-to-send service grow increasingly unreliable.

AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham presents his company's new regime as a boon to end-users, stating -- misleadingly -- that a certification system will protect user inboxes from spam. This isn't true. AOL subscribers will receive certified email in addition to the regular traffic that clutters most inboxes.

"We continue to provide exceptional service to all email senders who conform to our antispam guidelines," Graham writes in a rebuttal to our campaign. "In fact, CertifiedEmail serves as a valuable, new standard and threshold for the delivery of legitimate email that will serve as a guidepost for other email senders to follow and adhere to."

Nice try, Nicholas. AOL hasn't solved the spam problem at all; they've merely created a second tier for delivery, one favoring those who can afford to pay AOL's express rate. The other tier -- which has been increasingly compromised by AOL's inability to distinguish honest email from spam -- will remain in place. It may get worse, even, as AOL tries to "incentivise" more users to move from the free lane to their toll road.

The Façade of Good Intentions

You would think that AOL could better spend its time and energy improving the existing spam filters. Apparently not.

According to Andrew Lochart of the email service provider Postini, AOL's effort "badly misses the mark" because it will lead to more spam in user inboxes. "It guarantees delivery of paid-for bulk email based on the sender paying, not based on users' preferences," Lochart told Red Herring. "In other words, it will allow more, not less, unwanted email through to users."

David Hughes, chief executive officer of email security company Reflexion Network Solutions, said AOL's proposal "violates the democratic principles of the Internet and many people will see this as a transparent attempt to develop a new revenue stream despite the company's façade of good intentions."

In truth, AOL is attempting to profit from its own incompetence. By adopting the pay-to-send plan, AOL is declaring defeat in the war against spam. But instead of waving a white flag, AOL has asked legitimate senders to pay for its failure by buying an easy pass to users' in-boxes.

Where's the benefit in that?

But that's just the half of it.

As I mentioned earlier today, AOL's email tax is one salvo in a two-pronged assault on a free and open Internet. On the one hand, we have large cable and telephone companies that are now seeking to become the gatekeepers to Internet content and services. (for more on this visit NetFreedomNow.org). On this front we have large email providers that want to turn email communications into a privileged realm for those who can afford to pay a corporate tax.

These are the first steps onto a slippery slope that could dismantle the net freedoms that Americans have come to know. These types of corporate schemes discriminate against those of us who use the Internet to spread new ideas and spark innovation and dissent.

Reversing the Revolution

The Internet has evolved to be the most democratic medium in the history of communications – more accessible even than Gutenberg’s press. At its core is its ability to level the playing field for all comers.

The brilliance of this end-to-end network is that the intelligence resides at the edge of the network; the wires in between simply pass information between individual users. Those who run the network’s only job is to move data — not to stifle user innovation by selecting which users to privilege with higher speeds and "guaranteed" delivery.

If corporations like AOL get their way today, they’ll stifle the spread of independent ideas that we've come to expect online and shift the digital revolution into reverse.

Network Neutrality: Dead on Arrival?

Network neutrality, a principle that ensures the free flow of ideas online, appears dead on arrival in Washington as big media once again wield influence over our elected politicians.

The numbers tell the story. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, AT&T and other telephone and cable companies are among the top contributors to the re-election campaigns of a number of house Telecommunications Subcommittee members, including Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who has received more than $12,000 from AT&T executives, employees and their family members. Comcast associates tipped in an additional $10,000 equaling Upton's contribution from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA).

And hands aren’t clean on the other side of the aisle either. AT&T, Comcast and NCTA have tipped more than $100,000 into the campaign war chests of Telecommunications Subcommittee Democrats as well.

The corporate largesse is paying dividends. Sources inside the House of Representatives revealed earlier this week that all language pertaining to network neutrality has been struck by subcommittee from the latest draft of the Telecom Act.

According to the National Journal, the Telecommunications Subcommittee is likely to drop all references after lawmakers failed to reach consensus on the issue. If the Journal report is correct, the DC bottleneck is the net result of the full-tilt lobbying by AT&T, Comcast, BellSouth and Verizon.

In addition to the money spent to fill campaign coffers, they have funneled tens of millions of dollars to lobbying efforts, industry friendly think tanks and political junkets, waving a strong hand over all sectors of the political process -- at the local, state and federal levels.

By lining their pockets with telco dollars, certain lawmakers have opted to turn their backs on network neutrality and abandoned their posts as guardians of our public commons. They've decided that committing a crime of omission is better than standing up to the corporate powers that be.

A Telecom Act without network neutrality would hasten the Internet's demise -- effectively ridding our online experience of the governing principle that until now fostered the free flow of ideas and made the Web a beacon for democratic ideas and business innovation.

A Telecom Act without an enforceable rulebook would leave this democratic medium to the whims of predatory telephone and cable companies. The stage is now set for these conglomerates to play gatekeepers to all online content and services -- turning our net freedoms into their net revenues.

If the nation's largest ISPs are allowed to discriminate against the flow of web traffic, The New York Times editorial board wrote on Sunday, "the Internet providers, rather than consumers, could become the driving force in how the Internet evolves."

The profit motive of a few corporations would supplant the freedoms of all users, determining which innovations end up shaping our digital future. The threat is real. These companies could block us from viewing a favorite podcast or blog, cut off net phones unless we use the company service, or force us to download MP3s from their company store while slowing access to other music sites.

AT&T, Bell South, Comcast and Verizon make massive campaign contributions. They're used to getting their way in the halls of Congress. And they don't want network neutrality to stop them from getting their way online.

Only a public outcry can restore this founding principle, before it becomes a footnote in the history of the Internet’s fall.

It's time Americans who feel strongly about an open and free Internet told our elected representatives to reverse course. Net neutrality is an issue where the public's interest cannot be outflanked by massive telcos and their well-oiled politicians.

Is Network Neutrality DOA?

NetFreedomNow is now gathering 100,000 signatures in a campaign to pressure Congress to save network neutrality.

This public push is especially urgent now. Sources inside the House of Representatives just revealed their intention to strike network neutrality from the latest draft of the Telecom Act.

According to the National Journal, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is likely to drop all references after lawmakers failed to reach consensus on the issue.

If the Journal report is correct, the DC bottleneck is the net result of the full-tilt lobbying by AT&T, Comcast, BellSouth and Verizon. These corporations have convinced enough pliant members of Congress to discard with neutrality safeguards altogether -- effectively ridding the Internet of the governing principles that until now fostered the free flow of ideas and innovation.

A Telecom Act without network neutrality would leave the future of the Internet to the whims of predatory telephone and cable companies. The stage is now set for these communications giants to play gatekeepers to all online content and services -- turning our net freedoms into their net revenues.

Not good.

To that end, The New York Times editorial board wrote on Sunday:

If access tiering takes hold, the Internet providers, rather than consumers, could become the driving force in how the Internet evolves. Those corporations’ profit-driven choices, rather than users’ choices, would determine which sites and methodologies succeed and fail. They also might be able to stifle promising innovations, like Internet telephony, that compete with their own business interests.

AT&T, Bell South, Comcast and Verizon make massive campaign contributions. They're used to getting their way in the halls of Congress. But it's time Americans who feel strongly about an open and free Internet told our elected representatives to reverse course.

Put enforceable network neutrality principles into our telecommunications laws and regulations by taking action now at: www.netfreedomnow.org

Net neutrality is an issue where the public's interest cannot be out-flanked by massive telcos and their well-oiled politicians.