giganews blog

We highly recommend that Giganews members view "The FCC Revolving Door vs. The Open Internet" for a detailed look at how the revolving door has hurt the free and Open Internet. The FCC has extended the deadline for people to leave comments on their site to Friday, July 18th. Make your voice heard and show the FCC bureaucrats that the public's will to preserve the Open Internet is stronger than the corporate ties the revolving door has facilitated.



In May of 2014, the FCC made a historic decision to advance rules that will kill the "Open Internet" as we know it. Despite public outcry nationwide, Tom Wheeler, current chairman of the FCC, and his democratic commissioners betrayed Net Neutrality rhetoric, and instead approved the consideration for rules that would create a "two-tiered Internet." that will:

• stifle innovation by putting startups with less funding at a competitive disadvantage because they can't afford to pay for faster access
• increased costs because companies will pass along new costs for "premium traffic" to consumers
• decreased privacy because ISPs will snoop on user traffic so they can prioritize "premium" traffic over "regular" traffic

Though this ruling is disturbing and paints a grim picture of the future of the Internet, it doesn't come as a surprise. The FCC has a long history of employing former cable and telecom lobbyists and executives. This "revolving door" phenomenon has posed significant conflicts of interest in the past, from the controversial changes enacted to media ownership rules in 2003, the Comcast - NBC merger in 2011, and now this most recent Net Neutrality debacle.

The FCC has asked Internet users to weigh in on Net Neutrality by posting to the comments section on the FCC website, http://www.fcc.gov/comments. There have been over 800,000 comments, an overwhelming number that even caused the site to crash on July 15th. Continue to leave comments through July 18th and pressure the FCC to protect the Open Internet. Make your voice heard!