Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act

Well, it looks like broadband service providers will have to wait until another day to impede our internet experiences. The US House of Representatives passed the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act, a bill that prevents ISPs from making some sites load faster than others based on who pays them money or who their competitors are.

James Sensenbrenner, a Republican representative (doing the right thing???) hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that this bill is needed because people do not have too many options when it comes to broadband service, creating "an environment ripe for anticompetitive and discriminitory misconduct". As someone with a small web presence, I of course do not want to compete with sites like Amazon or eBay for bandwidth priority, and for all you blogospherites who want to continue reading sites like this, be glad this bill was approved, because there aren't too many other options out there for you.

Net Neutrality

Read this:

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an iPod? Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law next week that gives giant corporations more control over what we do and see on the Internet.
Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality--the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. BarnesandNoble.com doesn't have to outbid Amazon for the right to work properly on your computer.

If Net Neutrality is gutted, many sites--including Google, eBay, and iTunes--must either pay protection money to companies like AT&T or risk having their websites process slowly. That why these high-tech pioneers, plus diverse groups ranging from MoveOn to Gun Owners of America, are opposing Congress' effort to gut Internet freedom.

You can do your part today--can you sign this petition telling your member of Congress to preserve Internet freedom? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet?track_referer=706%7C7021865-z_75Yh6uRiRY6ZJ3z.co9A

I signed this petition, along with 250,000 others so far. This petiton will be delivered to Congress before the House of Representatives votes next week. When you sign, you'll be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.

Snopes.com, which monitors various causes that circulate on the Internet, explained:

Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site's traffic has precedence over any other's...Whether a user searches for recipes using Google, reads an article on snopes.com, or looks at a friend's MySpace profile, all of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user's web browser with the same priority. In recent months, however, some of the telephone and cable companies that control the telecommunications networks over which Internet data flows have floated the idea of creating the electronic equivalent of a paid carpool lane.

If companies like AT&T have their way, Web sites ranging from Google to eBay to iTunes either pay protection money to get into the "fast lane" or risk opening slowly on your computer. We can't let the Internet--this incredible medium which has been such a revolutionary force for democratic participation, economic innovation, and free speech--become captive to large corporations.

Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue. Together, we do care about preserving the free and open Internet.

Super Mario Guitar

This came up in a conversation the other day, and I was challenged to produce the clip.

I win.