Do you buy books online, use Google, eBay, Napster or iTunes to download to an iPod or just cruise the internet? Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law next week that gives giant corporations more control over what we do and see on the Internet.
Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality-the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. BarnesandNoble.com doesn't have to outbid Amazon for the right to work properly on your computer. Our parts sources don't have to out bid others to have their sites work properly on your computer. Even our little forum here will be negatively affected.
If Net Neutrality is gutted, almost every popular site-from Google to eBay to iTunes-must either pay “protection money” (read as extortion) to Internet companies like AT&T or risk having their websites process slowly. That why these high-tech pioneers and others are opposing Congress' effort to gut Internet freedom.
BUT, you can do your part today...
Can you sign this petition telling your member of Congress to preserve Internet freedom?
Click here to sign: MoveOn.org: SAVE THE INTERNET!! or here at SaveTheInternet.com
I, along with 250,000 others have signed this petition so far. This petition will be delivered to Congress before the House of Representatives votes next week. When you sign, you'll be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.
Snopes.com, which monitors various causes that circulate on the Internet, explained:
Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site's traffic has precedence over any other's...Whether a user searches for Porsche parts using Google, reads an article on snopes.com, or looks at a friend's MySpace profile, all of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user's web browser with the same priority. In recent months, however, some of the telephone and cable companies that control the telecommunications networks over which Internet data flows have floated the idea of creating the electronic equivalent of a paid carpool lane. IF companies like AT&T have their way, Web sites ranging from Pelican, PCA, Google to eBay to iTunes either pay protection money to get into the "fast lane" or risk opening slowly on your computer.
We can't let the Internet-this incredible medium which has been such a revolutionary force for FAN EDITS, PRESERVATIONS, democratic participation, economic innovation, and free speech - become captive to large corporations.
Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue and sadly I feel that alot of us ARE NOT! BUT together, we can show them that WE DO CARE about preserving the free and open Internet.
Please sign the petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Internet freedom!!!!!
Click here to sign: MoveOn.org: SAVE THE INTERNET!! or here at SaveTheInternet.com
PLEASE CUT-AN-PASTE this whole topic into your emails and send it off to all your family and friends!!
http://www.savetheinternet.com/
http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/?id=7449-6003437-hEzlV7V56ILGLveid6SgYg&t=5>
WORD!!