Thursday, September 4, 2014

Find: Big tech companies plan “Internet Slowdown” to fight for net neutrality

Big tech companies plan “Internet Slowdown” to fight for net neutrality
// Ars Technica

Next week, some of the biggest tech companies will lead a symbolic “Internet Slowdown” to protest the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality proposal.

“Several top websites—including Etsy, Kickstarter, Foursquare, WordPress, Vimeo, reddit, Mozilla, Imgur, Meetup, Cheezburger, Namecheap, Bittorrent, Gandi.net, StartPage, BoingBoing, and Dwolla—announced that they will be joining more than 35 advocacy organizations and hundreds of thousands of activists in a day of action that will give a glimpse into what the Internet might look like if the FCC’s proposed rules go into effect,” a blog post today from the advocacy group “Fight for the Future” said.

The FCC’s proposal would require Internet service providers to provide a vaguely defined minimum level of service to all legal applications and websites, but it would not prevent ISPs from charging companies for faster access to Internet users. Net neutrality advocates argue that so-called “fast lanes” will divide the Internet into different tiers, with deep-pocketed companies having unfair advantages over smaller ones. But the FCC isn’t allowed to issue stronger restrictions on fast lanes unless it takes the controversial step of reclassifying broadband as a utility or "common carrier" service.

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