Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, asks AdSense Publishers to support net neutrality!
Posted on 11 June 2006 by John
I dunno if you read this open letter from Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google asking the support to AdSense Publishers to contact their congress representative against the new bill which will allow phone companies to charge for faster access to certain sites!
Here’s the whole letter —
Dear AdSense Publisher,
There’s a debate heating up in Washington, DC on something called “net neutrality” – and the outcome of this debate may very well impact your business. Therefore, we are taking the unprecedented steps of calling your attention to this looming crisis and asking you to get involved.
Sometime in the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill would give the big phone and cable companies the power to choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.
Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access to everyone else. On the Internet, a business doesn’t need the network’s permission to communicate with a customer or deploy an innovative new service. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all broadband Internet access, want the power to choose who gets onto the high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build tollbooths to block the on-ramps for those whom they don’t want to compete with and who can’t pay this new Internet tax. Money and monopoly, not ideas and independence, will be the currency of their Internet.
Under the proposed “pay-to-play” system, small- and medium-sized businesses will be placed at an automatic disadvantage to their larger competitors. Those who cannot afford the new Internet tax – or who want to compete directly with the phone and cable companies – will be marginalized by slower Internet access that will inevitably make their sites less accessible, and therefore less appealing.
Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight. Imagine an Internet in which your access to customers is constrained by your ability to cut a deal with the carriers. Please call your representative in Congress at 202-224-3121. For more information on the issue, and more ways to make your voice be heard, visit www.ItsOurNet.org.
Thank you for your time, your concern and your support.
Eric Schmidt
CEO of Google Inc.P.S. — If you are unsure of who represents you in Congress, you can look them up by zip code at http://www.house.gov. And if you would like to stay informed about this issue, and other policy issues affecting Google, you can opt-in to our policy mailing list at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/googlepolicy/subscribe (powered by Google Groups).
If you are in a position to help, i.e. are a US citizen, then do so by any means! It is very important that his stupid bill be rejected!






June 11th, 2006 at 6:39 am
Usually I don’t get behind these corporate crusades, but I feel that this issue is extremely important — especially since so many of us derive our livelihood from the Internet. You can bet I’ll be writing to my representatives soon!
June 11th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Indeed, this would directly hurt our livelihood! Even though I am not in a position to directly affect this bill (as I am no a US citizen) however I am trying to do all I can to raise the awareness about this issue.
June 11th, 2006 at 8:37 am
Reaction to – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5063072.stm
June 17th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Wow! This is crazy! I swear, soon they’re going to itroduce a traffic light tax. Everytimg you want to cross the road, you put in a coin.