You’re wondering what the Google and Verizon agreement means to you. You might not know what net neutrality is so let’s break it down simply:
Net Neutrality allowed Google to be born. Net Neutrality allowed Twitter to be born. Net Neutrality allowed virtually every site you now know and love to exist. Network Neutrality is the concept that Internet Service Providers must treat all network traffic equally, regardless of anything including corporate partnerships. They cannot favor one website over another. They cannot speed up or slow down one website over another.
What if Time Warner decided, after acquiring MySpace, that they wanted to slow start ups Facebook and Twitter to such a slow pace that they became unusable? Do you seriously still want to be using MySpace because it loads more quickly than superior services?
Comcast bought NBC. Without Net Neutrality Comcast could speed up web traffic for Hulu, NBC.com and Fancast and slow YouTube to a crawl. Do you want Comcast making that choice FOR you?
Verizon and Google have made a pact that endangers net neutrality on wireless networks. This means that Verizon could choose to speed up YouTube and slow down Hulu and NBC to an unbearable crawl. Do you want Verizon making that choice FOR you?
Apple could choose to use part of their enormous $24 billion budget to slow Amazon to such a slow speed that the only viable way to download music was through iTunes, and books through iBooks. What would you do with your Kindle? Maybe you’d just have to get an iPad instead.
Here’s the simple question:
Who do you want deciding the speed of different sites?
Do you want to choose for yourself which sites you like and want to go to or do you want a corporation to decide for you? This IS a First Amendment issue. You don’t want companies being able to squash free speech and dissent in collusion with Internet Service Providers. You don’t want your choices limited.
Net Neutrality affects all of us. The internet as it stands now is the product of a level playing field. No matter who your internet provider is they could not discriminate against any form of traffic. Now Google and Verizon want to take that away…and why shouldn’t they; they are publicly traded corporations. Their responsibility is to maximize shareholder wealth, long term consequences be damned!
That’s what’s going on here with the Google-Verizon pact. It’s an assault on the internet as we know it and the birth of something awful. Startups would be at the mercy of ISPs. Do NOT let this happen. Get involved!
Whatever your political beliefs are is irrelevant; if you believe in anarchy or totalitarian government or anything in between, the government’s job is to protect the public good. That’s its only real job. This is a matter of public good.
Here’s how to get involved.
Go to Al Franken’s website, he seems to be the only one standing up for this: http://www.alfranken.com/index.php/splash/netneutrality
You can donate or just sign the petition, but he is going to argue against this agreement happening.
Call your representatives and let them know that you, as a constituent want them to get involved. http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
Tweet your representatives going here: http://2gov.org/
Do something, because when you leave my page remember that if this pact goes through, whatever site you are navigating to next, could be slowed to a crawl.