Free Press : Internet Freedom Under Fire: Act Now

Take Action at freepress.net.

After destroying TV and radio, mega-media corporations are scheming to control what content you can view and which services you can use online.

Streaming video, Internet phones, podcasting and online games are the future of the Internet. But companies like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast want Congress to let them deliver only their own products at super-high speeds … while sticking the rest of us in the slow lane.

This predatory scheme would be a dead end for independent voices and Internet innovators: bloggers, producers, and any new channels and services that might compete with the conglomerates.

From its beginnings, the Internet was built on a cooperative, democratic ideal. The infrastructure’s only job was to move data between users — regardless of where it came from or what it contained.

This “network neutrality” fostered a medium that did not exclude anyone, allowed for far-reaching innovations, and created the Internet as we know it.

Past experience shows that when large media companies are left to their own devices, the result is content and services that serve nothing but their bank accounts. An open and independent Internet is the antidote to these media gatekeepers.

If big media companies are allowed to limit the fastest services to those who can pay their toll, upstart Web services, consumers, bloggers and new media makers alike all would be cut off from the digital revolution.

Free Press will deliver a letter to the CEO of your broadband provider and send copies to your members of Congress, urging them to write “network neutrality” into law.