Senator Al Franken, with the help of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Reddit, Netflix, and dozens of other companies, has delivered a message to Congress on the downright dumb plan to introduce "slow lanes" to the Internet, complimented by paid-for "fast lanes" which would allow preferential treatment of data and the transmission of that data to companies who have the capital to continue their influence on the same congressmen and women who are trying to strike Net Neutrality in the first place.
If you need an explanation of Net Neutrality, watch the video above as Franken does a good job of summing up Net Neutrality's handling of the competition between Google Video and Youtube in the last decade.
In the letter to the Federal Communications Commission, the companies state that "Over the past twenty years, American innovators have created countless Internet-based applications, content offerings, and services that are used around the world. These innovations have created enormous value for Internet users, fueled economic growth, and made our Internet companies global leaders. The innovation we have seen to date happened in a world without discrimination. An open Internet has also been a platform for free speech and opportunity for billions of users."
The companies argue that the FCC's defense of net neutrality has directly enabled that growth and that if the US Government abandons that defense it will inhibit the positive, open growth and impose new tolls on companies that will inhibit the free and open competition between firms in burgeoning new Internet-enabled industries.
"Instead of permitting individualized bargaining and discrimination, the [FCC's] rules should protect users and Internet companies on both fixed and mobile platforms against blocking, discrimination, and paid prioritization, and should make the market for Internet services more transparent. The rules should provide certainty to all market participants and keep the costs of regulation low."
For the full letter and the entire list of over 100 companies that signed it, click here (PDF link).
