Let Congress know about Net Neutrality (1)

There’s some buzz working up lately concerning Capitol Hill and the Internet. Cable and phone companies and those who provide the bandwidth of the Internet would like to create a “tiered Internet” where content providers (read: websites) would pay the cable companies for the priviledge of carrying their traffic. In simpler terms, businesses like Verizon would have companies like Google or Microsoft pay to guarantee that their respective webpages get to you and me fast. Those that don’t pay, don’t get priority, and get to the end users slower. It also potentially means that small, independent websites (fiestyturtles.com for instance, but millions of others) who are unable to pony up get shuffled to the bottom of the queue. Which essentially would put an end to the whole “anyone can publish anything that anyone can see on the Internet” thing. Wikipedia has a much better explanation than I can do. But I see it as if the phone companies told people “pay up, or you won’t be guaranteed that all calls will get through to you”. Slashdot has commentary as well.

So what can you do? Well, for starters, Google has been a vocal opponent of this legislation, and they have put together a nice page allowing you to easily contact your representatives and let them know what you think. Check out the page; there are a couple of links where you fill in your name and address, and they automatically send emails to the people who make the decisions. There’s also a phone number you can call. It only took me a few minutes to do, and maybe it’ll make a difference?