Google, Verizon Web Deal Could Upend Net Neutrality

Right now, the FCC is convening closed-door meetings with a few massive corporations that could kill the open Internet.

Rather than listen to the public outcry for Net Neutrality, the FCC seems content to cut a deal that lets AT&T, Verizon and Google carve up the Internet for themselves.

If that doesn't worry you, it should.

We can pull the FCC out of these backroom meetings and remind it to serve the public first, and not just AT&T:

1. First, call FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at 202.418.1000 and tell him not to sign on to any closed-door compromise that kills Net Neutrality (See the call script below);
2. Second, submit a comment to the FCC urging it to stick to its original plan to protect the open Internet.

These giant corporations and the FCC are reportedly nearing consensus on a private agreement that would radically redesign the Web, allowing broadband providers to offer exclusive access to companies that can afford to pay the added toll.

The deal would let companies like Comcast and AT&T favor their own video services, voice applications and social media over others, insulating them from competition by upstart innovators that want to show consumers how things can be done better and more cheaply.

That the FCC would even consider such a deal is a shocking departure from Chairman Genachowski's earlier pledge to safeguard the open Internet.

Please call Genachowski and tell him to live up to his promise to protect the public and stop any backroom deal that endangers the free flow of communications online.

Thank you,

Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net
www.savetheinternet.com

CALL SCRIPT: First dial 202.418.1000. Please be respectful toward the person who answers. (Ranting won’t help the cause.) Here’s a suggested script:

I’m calling to tell Chairman Genachowski that the fate of the Internet is too important to be determined in closed-door meetings with a few massive companies. Any compromise that allows Internet providers to build toll lanes online is not REAL NET NEUTRALITY.

The chairman should keep his pledge to protect the free-flowing Internet. We need REAL NET NEUTRALITY and not a weak compromise that allows big companies like AT&T to degrade or interfere with my Web experience and limit what I can do online.

The FCC must reclassify broadband as a "telecommunications service," and put in place real Net Neutrality rules to keep the Internet open and free of corporate gatekeepers. Thank you.