Today Ed Markey introduced a new House bill to stop ISPs from filtering or prioritizing Internet traffic, and he needs our help to make this bill a law.
ISPs are increasingly coming under pressure from copyright holders to filter internet traffic (read: the information you and I send on the internet to each other). At a recent conference, NBC, Microsoft, AT&T and others all talked about filtering content in the near future. Already, some ISPs are engaging in what is called "traffic shaping" to prioritize some traffic over others.
To combat this, Congressman Markey, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, has introduced legislation mandating that all internet traffic is treated equally. He's openingly calling and promoting it as the Net Neutrality bill:
The Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., requires the Federal Communications Commission to assess whether broadband providers are "blocking, thwarting or unreasonably interfering" with consumers' rights to access, send, receive or offer content, applications and services over networks.
The FCC would also be required to determine whether providers charge extra for certain services and if it's lawful.
The bill also requires the agency to hold at least eight summits around the country to get input from various groups about Internet service competition and services.
The bill was drafted in response to reports that some companies, including Comcast Corp., are unfairly stifling communications over the Internet.
Read more about the bill here. As the story indicates, Rep. Markey tried to introduce similar legislation back in 2006 and failed. Obviously there's a good reason why -- Comcast and other ISPs would rather listen to companies like Microsoft and NBC than their own customers.
Comcast is already engaging in "traffic shaping" despite consumer backlash. It's going to take government action to keep Comcast and other ISPs from destroying net neutrality. It's time to make our Congress listen and get off their asses for a change. We need to let them know that net neutrality is an issue that won't go away, and the only solution is a bill like this one. So contact your Congressperson! We need to get this bill off the ground!