The FCC is wavering on Net Neutrality

From Fight For The Future:

I know Evan emailed you earlier today, but this is urgent. Media reports are coming out about FCC's forthcoming rules, and for the most part they sound really, really good. But, there’s one important detail, a loophole that might still let Comcast mess with services like Netflix. Can you send the FCC an email right now?

(In most email apps–including gmail–this will start a new email to a list of key FCC employees. Then just click send. If it doesn’t work, reply to let us know.)

Things are moving really fast right now, and we’ll know more soon. But journalists at the Wall Street Journal have been briefed on the FCC’s latest plans, and it looks like the FCC will be giving cable companies like Comcast some ability to charge “interconnection fees.”

These fees are the reason Comcast forced broken and “buffering” video on millions of its own customers, just to extort money from Netflix.

We still don’t know the details of the rules yet. Probably even the Wall Street Journal hasn’t seen the exact text. And, if early reports are true, we could be looking at a huge victory for net neutrality. The rules look better than anybody ever thought the y’d be.

But we wanted to sound the alarm. As we move into the end game, we need the FCC to know we’re watching, and that we’re dead serious about getting net neutrality done right, with no loopholes for the cable companies to exploit. If there’s a big loophole (and it looks like there might be) let’s do everything we can to fix it right now. Are you with us?

Thanks for doing this.

Sincerely,
Holmes Wilson and the Fight for the Future team.

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If the links above don't work for you, here's the text of the email and who to send it to:

Subject: Don’t mess with Netflix
To: wheeler@fcc.gov
BCC:jonathan.sallet@fcc.gov,debra.weiner@fcc.gov,jacob.lewis@fcc.gov,michele.ellison@fcc.gov,mignon.clyburn@fcc.gov,adonis.hoffman@fcc.gov,rebekah.goodheart@fcc.gov,louis.peraertz@fcc.gov,daniel.alvarez@fcc.gov,ruth.milkman@fcc.gov,gigi.sohn@fcc.gov,philip.verveer@fcc.gov,maria.kirby@fcc.gov,diane.cornell@fcc.gov,renee.gregory@fcc.gov,matthew.berry@fcc.gov,nicholas.degani@fcc.gov,ajit.pai@fcc.gov,mike.orielly@fcc.gov,amy.bender@fcc.gov,shannon.gilson@fcc.gov,mark.wigfield@fcc.gov,kim.hart@fcc.gov,jonathan.chambers@fcc.gov,jon.wilkins@fcc.gov,julie.veach@fcc.gov,matthew.delnero@fcc.gov,roger.sherman@fcc.gov,kris.monteith@fcc.gov,team@fightforthefuture.org

Dear FCC,

I don't want Youtube, Netflix, Vimeo or *any* online video to look like this: http://gph.to/1D7oxY7

If you let cable companies charge interconnection fees, Comcast will keep slowing sites down until they cough up more cash.

Every American Internet user will suffer, and they’ll blame the FCC (and, likely, Obama) for not closing this loophole when they had the chance. I sincerely hope that the Wall Street Journal is wrong, and that your rules will ban these shakedown tactics outright.

Sincerely,
Everyone who watches video online.