The ITT List
Tuesday Feb 28, 2006 10:13 pm
Protect online organizing: protest AOL e-mail tax
An unusual coalition of conservative and progressive groups, nonprofits, small businesses and others have banded together to protest a proposed AOL system which would charge users to pay to send e-mail:
Hints for taking action on this front here
Affluent mass-emailers who are willing to pay AOL the equivalent of an "email tax" would get to bypass AOL's spam filters and get guaranteed delivery to the inboxes of AOL customers.
Everyone who can't afford to pay AOL's "email tax" - including charities, small businesses, civic organizations, and even families with mailing lists - will have no guarantee that their emails will be delivered. If other companies follow AOL in adopting pay-to-send systems, the Internet will become permanently divided into two classes of users - those who can afford to pay for guaranteed delivery and everyone else left behind with unreliable service.
Though billed in the media as an anti-spam and anti-phishing measure, AOL's pay-to-send system will fail on both scores.
AOL's "email tax" will cause great harm to the free and open Internet that many of us take for granted. The Internet is a revolutionary force for free speech, civic organizing, and economic innovation specifically because it is open and accessible to all Internet users. With a free and open Internet, small ideas can become big ideas overnight. AOL's move to introduce a pay-to-send system is a danger to this openness, and we urge them to reconsider.
Hints for taking action on this front here
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Here are two recent articles about the privatization of the internet:
The End of the Internet? (Feb 1)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester:
The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets—corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers—would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.
Under the plans they are considering, all of us—from content providers to individual users—would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing “platinum,” “gold” and “silver” levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received.
Senators Mull an Internet With Restrictions (Feb 8)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060220/wexler
The experts largely fell into two camps. Representatives of major telephone and cable companies and conservative academics urged government to get out of the way, encourage the growth of high-speed Internet networks and enable Internet system operators to “recoup their investments” without statutory or regulatory constraints. On the opposing side were the Internet “evangelists” and innovators who urged Congress to enact into law longstanding principles that preserve an open Internet where no company can restrict any individual’s access to content or place barriers on any lawful application or activity.
Sorry here’s the first link again:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester
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