Net Neutrality – The Fight Continues

Wearetheweb.com has produced a music video featuring (not so) high-profile celebrities in favor of Net Neutrality. Wearetheweb.com pulled off an impressive internet only celebritries from the dancing baby to the Asian BSB Squad, the Peter Pan Guy and the Tron Guy to make a music video promoting Net Neutrality. Hopefully part 2 will feature the the chubby lightsaber kid!

Despite the 2006 Network Neutrality Act’s tough defeat to Congress and a positive result for the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006, the fight for Net Neutrality continues. Plenty of people and organizations are taking sides with an uneven balance of consumers and internet based companies that are pro Net Neutrality and a top heavy group of power hungry telecommunication and broadband service providers along with the support of mainly conservative politicians are opposing the idea.

Can you tell which side we are on?

A bit of background according to the WikiPedia:

“Supporters of net neutrality regulations argue that the current FCC principles are too weak to prevent telecommunications companies from charging fees to certain content providers in exchange for preferential treatment, which they believe will threaten innovation and entrepreneurship on the Internet. They see the Internet as a “level playing-field” which rewards the best ideas rather than the most well-funded ideas and believe that net neutrality guidelines are necessary to maintain this dynamic.

Opponents of net neutrality regulations argue that the Internet is not a level-playing field as companies such as Google and Akamai are free to achieve a performance advantage over smaller competitors by replicating servers and buying high-bandwidth services. Service discrimination, against the real background of today’s Internet, actually makes the Internet more neutral, according to this view.

Telecommunications companies, having invested billions of dollars in new network infrastructure, believe they have the right to operate the network with minimal government interference. They believe that imposing net neutrality regulations would prevent them from expanding and improving Internet access for their customers, stifling incentives to develop new technologies and possibly leading to higher prices for consumers. There is currently a debate in Congress over how to best balance the concerns of both groups.”

Late last year, a surge of online organizations and websites supporting Net Neutrality started popping up. These organizations provide insight into the importance of Net Neutrality and give visitors an opportunity to take action by spreading the word to friends or voicing concern directly to Congress. Here are a few of the websites involved:

http://www.savetheinternet.com/ (down at the time of this post)
http://www.wearetheweb.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality