Payolas spin cycle

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The Future of the Internet
Timothy Karr Campaign Director Free
Presswww.freepress.net
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A brief history of communications
60,000 years ago

• People started to speak

5,000 years ago

• People started to write

600 years ago
45 years ago

• The Internet was born

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In the 1960s, a U.S. defense research project
created a linked network that shared information
across computers.

• It was a network called ARPANET.

• It relayed data from one computer to the
  next using packet switching technology.

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The World Wide Web
17 years ago

• It was an open platform of standards
  where anyone could create a Web site on the
  Internet.
• Opening up the platform for everyone was
  the catalyst for explosive growth.
• The Internet grew like an embryonic brain
  to become one of the largest structures
  ever assembled by humans.

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It exploded in all directions
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The Internet is changing

• The Internet age is a major historical shift.
  Like the industrial revolution, it is changing
  nearly every aspect of life
• political systems
• economic power
• gender roles
• where and how we live
• And the most important thing about the Internet
  It was all built on a level playing field called
  Net Neutrality.

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Welcome to the revolution
Net Neutrality is this

• Net Neutrality is the guiding principle that
  preserves the free and open Internet.
• It ensures that all users can access the
  content or run the applications and devices
  of their choice.
• Under Net Neutrality, the network's only job is
  to move data not choose which data to
  privilege with higher quality service.

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Heres how it works

• The Web flows into your computer through
  pipes owned for the most part by phone and
  cable companies.
• They charge fees to anyone who wants to use
  them, but they're not allowed to mess with
  what's inside those pipes.
• Net Neutrality ensures that everyones Web
  sites gets treated the same.

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Net Neutrality saves democracy

• I can read my cousin's political blog just as
  easily as I can browse to CNN.com.
• I can download music from a independent music
  site as easily as I can from Sonys Web
  site.
• I can post a video of a local campaign speech
  confident that network owners wont impede
  access to it.

Under Net Neutrality, users choose
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Net Neutrality is about innovation
The neutral network has become an engine for
innovation. Internet name brands of today were
just a good idea in a garage a decade ago.

• College kids working out of their garage
  created Google.
• A hobbyist conceived the idea for eBay.
• An Israeli teenager wrote the code for Instant
  Messaging.
• The most popular sites on the Internet today
  MySpace, FaceBook, and YouTubedidnt exist
  three years ago.

This technological revolution keeps turning as
long as the Internet remains an unrestricted
marketplace of ideas where innovators rise and
fall on their merits.
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Net Neutrality is the Internet
... and its now under threat
This fundamental notion of an open and level
playing field is NOW under siege by powerful
industries who seek to tilt the field to their
advantage.
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How did this happen?
Lets review
What ever happened to the idea of the MASS media?
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In the 1920s radio was a common technology, in
the sense that an extraordinary range of people
could gain access to a new and relatively cheap
technology to air messages to one another.
But once companies began to think that they
could profit from advertising over our airwaves
the FCC began to implement a very different idea
about how radio would function.
Working with special interests, government
allocated the spectrum in a way that made it so
only a few could get access to the airwaves. By
the mid 1930s NBC and CBS were responsible for an
astounding 97 of nighttime broadcasting.
The number of radio station owners has plummeted
by 34 since the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
That year, the biggest radio owners controlled
fewer than 65 stations. Today, Clear Channel one
company owns more than 1,200.
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Television suffered much the same fate. Using
powerful lobbyists, television broadcasters
gained overwhelming influence in Washington.
The spent 222 million to lobby government
officials from 1998 to 2004. including millions
on entertainment and travel, taking FCC
regulators on 2,500 all-expense-paid trips.
Television broadcasting policy was shaped in
closed-door meetings with policymakers. So, even
though the public owned the airwaves, special
interests decided how this influential media was
created, financed, and distributed.
There developed an interdependence between those
who held political power (and needed access to
the airwaves) and those who controlled the
airwaves (and needed access to political power).
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What happened to the Mass Media
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could happen to the Internet
What happened to stifle openness and limit access
to broadcasting is happening to the Internet
right now.
A handful of phone and cable giants are promising
to build a new network of Internet services. But
they want something in return from government.
They want control. Not just over the pipes but
control over the Internet itself.
Theyre pushing laws that would gut Net
Neutrality
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The threat is real
This isn't mere speculation we've seen what
happens when the gatekeepers gain control over
radio and television. Phone and cable companies
are now hatching plans for the Internet

• Ed Whitacre told BusinessWeek he was no longer
  going to let people "use his pipes for free
  ... there's going to have to be some
  mechanism for these people who use these
  pipes to pay for the portion they're using."

• William L. Smith of BellSouth told the
  Washington Post that his firm should be
  able to charge Yahoo Inc. for the
  opportunity to have its search site load faster
  than that of Google Inc.

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How would this affect you
Google usersAnother search engine could pay
dominant Internet providers like ATT to
guarantee the competing search engine opens
faster than Google on your computer. Ipod
listenersA company like Comcast could slow
access to iTunes, steering you to a higher-priced
music service that it owned. Political
groupsPolitical organizing could be slowed by a
handful of dominant Internet providers who ask
advocacy groups to pay "protection money" for
their Web sites and online features to work
correctly. Online purchasersCompanies could pay
Internet providers to guarantee their online
sales process faster than competitors with lower
pricesdistorting your choice as a
consumer. Small businessesWhen Internet
companies like ATT discriminate in favor their
own services and allies, new market entrants
wont be able to compete. BloggersCosts will
skyrocket to post and share video and audio
clipssilencing citizen journalists and putting
more power in the hands of a few corporate-owned
media outlets.
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Changing the law
To kill Net Neutrality, phone and cable companies
are changing the laws. In the past 10 years,
they have spent more than half a billion dollars
on campaign contributions, political action
committees, PR firms and high-spending lobbyists
to push through their rules. On Net Neutrality
alone, ATT, Verizon, BellSouth and Comcast have
spent more than 150 million to strong arm
Congress and the FCC.
But they didn't anticipate one thing....
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In 2006, a grassroots coalition of more than 850
groups including educators, not-for-profits,
consumer rights groups, small business and
public advocates banded together to protect
Internet freedom. We were joined by more than 1.5
million people who signed a petition urging
Congress to maintain the free and open Internet.
More than 6,000 bloggers linked to the
coalition's site, SavetheInternet.com, many of
them posting homemade videos to counteract the
phone companies misinformation campaign. Online
social networks formed around the issue at
MySpace, FaceBook and YouTube.
We Used the Internet to Save the Internet.
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We took action

• Signed a petition to Congress.
• Called our Members.
• Wrote letters to our hometown newspapers.
• Downloaded, printed and distributed flyers.
• Made our own protest videos.
• Promoted Net Neutrality on Blogs and Web sites.
• Delivered petitions and spoke out publicly.
• And told our friends to join the fight for
  Internet freedom.

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We came out in the streets

• and 25 other cities across the country.

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And we won
This grassroots campaign lifted this arcane issue
from obscurity and threw a wrench in phone and
cable Companies plan to overhaul our media laws
behind closed doors. Whereas before, the phone
companies were confident that Congress would
simply sign-off on industry-written legislation,
today no member of Congress can vote with the
telecom cartel without feeling the full heat of
public scrutiny.
We made opposing Net Neutrality a political third
rail.
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Internet access must be regarded as a civil right
for every American. We want

• Universal and Affordable Access

• An Open and Neutral Network

• World Class Quality and Choice

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Lessons from the campaign

• Policy Matters to People

• Strange Bedfellows Make Good Allies

• Grass- and Netroots Kill Astroturf

• Let People Own Your Issue

• Work from the Inside Out, and Outside In

• Elections Matter Too

SavetheInternet.com