Dear Big Corporations, Please tell me who to be!

The issue of network neutrality challenges the users ability to freely access information on the internet. Internet companies such as AT&T, Time Warner, Verizon, and Comcast want to be the ones to tell you, the consumer, what pages you can and cannot view. They want to restrict and guide you to their products and services by slow service and blocked sites. Who wins in this scenario, the customer or the corporation?




The participating companies are attempting to show their muscle by acting as the gatekeeper by restricting information, limiting innovation, and killing competition. The internet is one of the few places let that the consumer still has control in his/her own experience and use on the internet. Web sites will no longer succeed or fail based on their own merit, but rather how much money they have in their bank account.

As these big corporations spend hundreds of millions lobbing in congress, we, the customer, continues to pay for the service and ultimately support them. In 2005 a decision by the FCC put the original idea of a free and open internet in jeopardy. This decision is one of the continuing driving forces of the lobbyists to persist on a path of no network neutrality.

"AT&T and others have funded a massive misinformation campaign, filled with deceptive advertising and "Astroturf" groups like Hands Off the Internet and NetCompetition.org."



What do we stand to loose in the loss of Network Neutrality? Small businesses who can't afford to pay for a faster speed will be left behind by the gaits who can. Entrepreneurs will lose the ability to be judged freely and fairly as corporations take the top spots on the web. Blogging will no longer be a free marketplace of information, rather censored by those who bid the highest. Search engines that do not pay the highest bid will take the backseat to those who do, by slowing down service. You the consumer will be steered to big corporations with a faster loading page, or a site that hasn't been blocked, guiding you to buy the products of their supporters. And the list is really endless, everyone would be affected, and again the rich would just keep getting richer.

Think this hasn't already affected you? WRONG. Check out this website to see how companies like Verizon are blocking pro-choice text message, or how AT&T censored a live web cast that criticized President Bush.


BENIB. Total Information Control. 2006. www.minutemanmedia.org. 16 Nov. 2007 .

"Frequently Asked Questions." Save the Internet. 16 Nov. 2007 .