Verizon struck a mortal blow against Net Neutrality by persuading a federal judge to throw out the Federal Communication Commission’s Open Internet Order.
And now FCC Chair Tom Wheeler faces a choice -- he can stand up for Net Neutrality or help Verizon kill it for good. The fate of the open Internet rests on this choice.
Over a million of us asked him to implement strong new Net Neutrality rules that will both pass legal muster and ensure Americans have access to a free and open Internet.
But instead Wheeler recently proposed a new set of rules that will put the final nail in the coffin for Net Neutrality. This is wrong.
We only have until
the May 15 FCC meeting to push back hard enough to get Wheeler to change course.
Net Neutrality is a principle that says that Internet users, not Internet service providers (ISPs), should be in control. It ensures that Internet service providers can’t speed up, slow down, or block web content based on its source, ownership, or destination.
Net Neutrality is dead for the time being – but the FCC could stand up to Verizon and AT&T and pass strong rules.
Instead, Wheeler's proposed rules would divide the Internet into fast lanes for wealthy corporations and slow lanes for the rest of us. Internet service providers (ISPs) would be allowed to relegate content to the slow lane unless the content provider paid up.
That means that the speed you could stream a video, for example, would not just depend on the kind of Internet plan you purchase from your ISP. It would also heavily depend upon whether the entity hosting the video paid for the express lane so that it didn’t take forever to download. Not only is this anti-consumer, allowing corporations to decide what kind of content you can access on the Internet is fundamentally anti-democratic.
Tell Chairman Wheeler: Don't help Verizon kill Net Neutrality. (Click the picture to sign the petition.)