Telecom incumbents are trying to change the Internet -- and they've spent millions of dollars over the past couple months to buy Thursday's US House of Representatives vote on the COPE Act. These corporations are fighting for legal cover to discriminate against content they don't like, and their plan took a big step forward Thursday evening with this most recent vote. Congressional leaders refused to allow a vote in support of Network Neutrality, disallowing the Sensenbrenner amendment from coming to a floor vote. Here's the post-vote synopsis -- the next step is to contact your Senators and prevent this fundamental change to the Internet from going through:

June 8, 2006
Contact:

Jeannine Kenney
(202) 238-9249
Ben Scott
(202) 265-1490

House Ignores Public, Sells Out the Internet through Passage of COPE Act

Net Neutrality Advocates Look to Senate to Save Internet Freedom

WASHINGTON (June 8, 2006) - Today the US House passed the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE) without meaningful network neutrality provisions promoted by the diverse, right-left www.savetheinternet.com coalition of public interest and business groups. The 152 to 269 vote coincides with a massive lobbying effort by telephone companies to enter the national television market and prevent preservation of network neutrality requirements. "Special interest advocates from telephone and cable companies have flooded the Congress with misinformation delivered by an army of lobbyists to undermine decades-long federal practice of prohibiting network owners from discriminating against competitors to shut out competition. Unless the Senate steps in, today's vote marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as an engine of new competition, entrepreneurship and innovation." said Consumers Union Senior Policy Analyst, Jeannine Kenney. "The American public favors an open and neutral Internet and does not want gatekeepers taxing innovation and throttling the free market," said Ben Scott, Policy Director for Free Press. "The House has seriously undermined access to information and democratic communication. Despite the revisionist history propagated by the telcos and their lobbyists, until last year, the Internet had always been a neutral network. It is the central reason for its overwhelming success. This issue is not about whether or not the government will regulate the Internet. It's about whether consumers or cable and phone companies will decide what services and content are available on the Net." The grass-roots coalition backing network neutrality includes more than 700 groups, 5,000 bloggers and 800,000 individuals who have rallied in support of net neutrality at . The coalition is left and right, public and private, commercial and noncommercial. Supporters of net neutrality include the Christian Coalition of America, MoveOn.org, National Religious Broadcasters, the Service Employees International Union, the American Library Association, AARP, ACLU, and every major consumer group in the nation. It includes the founders of the Internet and hundreds of companies that do business online. This is not Google vs. AT&T," said Mark Cooper, Director of Research at Consumers Federation of America. "CFA has been battling to keep the phone companies from putting tollbooths on the Internet since the early 1980's, but now every business and every consumer that uses the Internet has a dog in the fight for Internet Freedom. This coalition will continue to grow, millions of Americans will add their voices, and Congress will not escape the roar of public opinion until Congress passes enforceable net neutrality." The battle for Net Neutrality - or Internet Freedom - now moves to the Senate, where there is significantly stronger bipartisan support. Senators Snowe (R-ME) and Dorgan (D-ND) have introduced the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006" that enjoys the strong support the SaveTheInternet coalition.

Representative Joe Barton, discussing the recent vote to allow content discrimination on the Internet: "You will not see a second-tier Internet. These companies are going to spend billions of dollars and offer new choices in markets where there is one cable company." -- one has to wonder, has Barton drunk so deeply of the telecom incumbent cool-aid that he's left his reason behind? Talk to just about anyone living just about anywhere that doesn't have provider competition and they'll tell you that their service options are insanely limited, the pricing exorbitant, and the quality sub-standard.

From DrewClark.com

The House passed the telecommunications legislation of Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, just past 10 p.m. on Thursday. The final vote tally on the bill was 321-101. Among Republicans, 215 supported it, with only 8 opposed. A majority of Democrats, 108 versus 92, voted for passage. The one independent voted no. Earlier in the evening, an amendment seeking to strengthen the Barton bill's "network neutrality" provisions failed 269-152, on an amendment offered by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
Normally when major legislation is being passed by Congress, even late in the evening or early in the morning, there is a crowd of reporters following the event. Not so last night. Shortly after the members left the floor for the evening, I caught up with Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Barton in the speakers' gallery. Barton was ready for a crowd, but since I was the only one there, here is our exclusive interview.
DREW CLARK: How do you feel at this moment?
JOE BARTON: Stunned and absolutely ecstatic. I think this sends a very strong signal to the country and the Senate that the county is ready for a broadband policy that promotes competition, good jobs for American workers, and new services for consumers.
CLARK: What about the vote on network neutrality?
BARTON: On that vote, we almost ended with a two-thirds vote against Markey. The premise of the Markey amendment is just flawed. If you had passed Markey, even if you go by his own analogy you would have forced the [auto] dealer to sell both cars at the same price. [He was referring to Markey's argument that both a Ferrari and a cheaper car could travel the same speed on the highway.] We want to empower the consumer to make choices from a broad array of services. The consumer will regulate the choice, not the regulator.
CLARK: Are you at all afraid that without neutrality rules, we are letting the genie out of the bottle and creating a second-tier Internet?
BARTON: That is a bogus argument. You will not see a second-tier Internet. These companies are going to spend billions of dollars and offer new choices in markets where there is one cable company.
At this point, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., walks into the Speaker's Gallery. I ask Barton about the prospects for the bill in the Senate, and he points to Upton, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.
FRED UPTON: It is my understanding that the Senate Commerce Committee is likely to mark up their bill this month and be on the floor in July. We have established a very good relationship with [Alaska Republican and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman] Stevens and his members: [John] Sununu, [Sam] Brownback and others, in addition to Stevens, through work on digital television, decency legislation, we have [bridged] any breaches that might have existed.
CLARK: What about the Universal Service Fund? There is a considerable difference with Stevens on that.
BARTON: We will work with Sen. Stevens, and we will find a compromise that satisfies most of the parties. I fundamentally disagree that we should saddle a new service with a fee that in the Internet era makes no sense. Why put a fee that was based on a monopoly service? With wireless and the Internet, you don't need that model. We can give them the functionality of the Universal Service Fund without given them regulation.
[At this point, Ed Markey walks close to our circle, greets Barton, but gets ready to leave.]
ED MARKEY: I agreed with everything he says, [referring to Barton. But I assume Markey is joking.]
CLARK, to Baron: How is your relationship with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin?
BARTON: I have a cordial personal and professional relationship with the Chairman and the other commissioners.
CLARK: [I ask him about the pointed letter he sent to Martin on Wednesday over the issue of cable operators being required to carry broadcasters' digital multicasts.]
BARTON: Multicast must-carry is another example; there is no reason in a broadband Internet competition model to impose regulatory [rules] based on some sort of constrained capacity. You don't need must-carry [when technologies] have no capacity constraints whatsoever.

A new coalition of megacorporations are funding a new misleading TV advertisement against Network Neutrality. This time it's a TV consortium (probably worried about people being able to get TV via the Internet, or, worse yet, pay for only the channels you actually want to watch). I've received several e-mails with bits and pieces of info, but have yet to track down info on who's responsible for the advertising campaign, or what the actual content of the advert is.

If you have any info, please drop me a line:

sascha@saschameinrath.com

[UPDATE1] Meanwhile, the AT&T sponsored astroturf group TV4US has begun calling residents across the United States to scare them into fighting against network neutrality. More info on this newest astroturf push-polling here.

The TV4US Coalition presents itself as, "advocating on behalf of American customers who deserve new choices, better service and lower costs in their television service." But, in actuality, its the same coalition of funders that were exposed to be behind HandsOffTheInternet.com -- to the point where they're registering their domains in the exact same way, and hiding information in the whois database behind the following:

registrant-lastname: Private Registration
admin-c-lastname: Private Registration
tech-c-lastname: Private Registration
bill-c-lastname: Private Registration

Clearly another attempt at misinforming the general populace and hiding the actual sponsors for yet another astroturf "non-profit."

[UPDATE2] I've also learned that just one day of advertising by this industry coalition in Washington, DC newspapers cost roughly $400,000. Obviously, the cost of the millions of dollars being spent by AT&T, BellSouth, et al. will be paid for by customers' -- begging the question, "Why are customers being forced to pay for misinformation campaigns that harm their own best interests?"

HandsofftheInternet.com is yet another prime example of astroturf in action. I can only suspect that telecom incumbents pay some sort of professional PR group to create websites like this specifically to misinform and mislead the public. So I decided to start an investigation to figure out who HandsOff actually was. Here's what I've found:

Looking at the footer on HandsOff, but that didn't provide any information on who was actually running the site. The "about us" section just said things like "Hands Off The Internet is a nationwide coalition of Internet users." Which begs the question, "Who are the members of this 'national coalition of Internet users?"

This lead me to take a look at the "Membership Organizations" section -- and low and behold, membership organizations included:

AT&T
Bell South
Cingular Communications
The National Association of Manufacturer
and a host of industry front groups

Now, this is rather enlightening, and I probably could have stopped there. But what happens if you delve deeper?

Read more...

We're gearing up for Monday's launch of SaveTheInternet.com. Vint Cerf will be joining us for the press conference -- you can help get the word out and link to the coalition website by posting this ad on your website:

Just copy this html code:

<A HREF=”http://www.savetheinternet.com/”><IMG SRC=”http://www.savetheinternet.com/images/blog_image.jpg” WIDTH=”150”
HEIGHT=”200” ALT=”Save the Internet: Click here” BORDER=”0”></A>

Here are the SavetheInternet.com Coalition's Statement of Principles:

Read more...