Fight for your Internet freedom

Your Internet is in danger.

And so is your economic future.

Because some large telecom companies want to change the Internet’s rules. And they want to do it quietly, secretly, before regular Internet users like you notice and have a chance to stop them.

These companies want to end “network neutrality.” That will mean higher prices and fewer choices.

Here’s why: Today, all bits moving across the Net are treated the same. Whether personal or business, e-mail or phone call, personal blog reading or corporate Web site selling, video download or music upload, the bits move through the Net at the same speed. The network is neutral, it doesn’t play favorites by pushing some bits along faster than others.

And that’s why we have the Internet economy, with companies like Amazon, eBay and Google appearing out of nowhere.

The big telecoms want to change that. They want to charge Internet companies for “priority” — a guarantee that their bits will move fastest. Or even to charge them simply for Net access — the right for their bits to travel to customers at all.

It isn’t enough for them to charge you to get on the Internet. They also want to charge the services and sites you reach on the Internet, so they can get money coming and going.

The result would be that only big companies already making tons of money could afford to reach customers.

And we all know that the best service and the best price always comes from the biggest company, right?

You wouldn’t see new, faster, better search services. Your only choice would be today’s search sites or any new search site created by the phone or cable companies. Soon you could see charges every time you used a search service. And the search could be filtered, a form of corporate censorship that seems more appropriate in Communist China than the United States.

You wouldn’t get free Internet phone calling, because why would the big telecoms — especially the phone companies — allow that? You’d get to use their Internet phone service at whatever price they decided was right, or you’d go without.

You’d see higher fees at eBay and higher prices at Amazon because they’d have to pay big taxes to the cable and phone companies, and so would have to pass those costs along to you.

You’d discover that some Web sites you saw mentioned in magazines or on TV, or passed along by friends, wouldn’t work on your computer, or would be slow and unreliable.

How can you fight this attack on the Internet, on the economy, on your rights?

Tell your Internet provider that they’d better support network neutrality or you’ll switch to another provider that does.

Tell your congressperson that they’d better support Internet freedom and network neutrality or you’ll switch to another who will.

Tell the FCC how you feel at http://fcc.gov.

Look up more through your favorite search site. That is, while it’s still working, still free and able to search the full Net.