Another Anti-Net Neutrality Group Emerges
More opposition to net neutrality laws emerged Tues. as another body -- this one fighting any more govt. control of the Web - stepped up. The Internet Freedom Coalition (IFC), made up of 24 conservative entities like Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the Center for Individual Freedom and state groups, slammed the notion of a net neutrality mandate as a “first giant leap” to Internet taxation, U.N. oversight of the Web’s underlying architecture and other controls.
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The debate over net neutrality has spawned formation of alliances aiming to influence telecom reform. April saw the launch of the pro-legislation SavetheInternet.com Coalition, whose pillars are Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, Public Knowledge, the Consumer Federation of America and Gun Owners of America. Then came the opposition from the Hands Off the Internet Coalition, led by Mike McCurry, once President Bill Clinton’s spokesman. Its ranks include AT&T, Alcatel, the National Assn. of Mfrs. and the American Conservative Union. The Net Neutrality Coalition (NNC) then entered the fray, supporting a net neutrality law. It’s bankrolled by Intel, Amazon.com, eBay, InterActiveCorp, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
“We're proud to join with other leading free market and faith-based organizations to ensure that the Internet remains driven by the free market, not by Washington bureaucrats and politicians,” said IFC Co-Dir. and Institute for Liberty Pres. Jason Wright: “The big government, pro-regulation crowd wants the government to regulate the Internet” but IFC and its 3 million citizen members reject net neutrality, Wright said. He hopes the GOP-controlled Congress won’t allow “MoveOn and liberal allies to turn back the clock on the greatest innovation and wealth-building enterprise to come along in a generation,” he said.
IFC’s launch is “obviously an attempt by the big telephone and cable companies to muddle the issue with astroturf efforts,” Free Press Communications Dir. Craig Aaron told us. Aaron, whose group helped knit SavetheInternet.com’s coalition together, sees irony in IFC, he said. “Supposedly ‘free market’ groups are lining up on the side of the big corporations that are proposing to get rid of net neutrality, which has ensured an even playing field for everyone on the Internet,” Aaron said.
The millions said to back IFC’s idea of Web freedom are being touted but haven’t materialized, Aaron said, calling the effort an “industry-funded scare tactic.” SavetheInternet has collected 600,000-plus petition signatures and 500 coalition allies, he said. Historically most groups backing IFC have worked with big corporations, had close ties to insiders like House Commerce Committee Chmn. Barton (R-Tex.) and are “being dragged out into this debate because they sense a popular upswell against the idea of not protecting Internet,” Aaron told us.
“Those with the best ideas and most innovative products have been able to prosper, thrive and compete” on the Internet as it is, he said, criticizing IFC’s “definition of Internet freedom.” The question before Congress is whether to have an even playing field, as has existed, or to usher in “a private toll road to the cable and telecom companies.” He bristled at IFC’s mention of the Internet tax issue. “The real taxes here are going to come from taxes that phone and cable companies are going to be asking content makers from biggest Internet companies to smallest blogs if they want a spot in this special fast lane [on the Web],” Aaron said.
IFC’s tactic would “only guarantee freedom for telecom companies and cable companies and everybody else gets to suffer,” a Public Knowledge spokesman said: “Their mythical tax that they say will be produced as a result of net neutrality simply defies all logic.”
NNC organizers were “frustrated and disappointed” that IFC signatories didn’t talk to them first, said Amazon Vp- Global Public Policy Paul Meisner. As both sides of the debate come into sharper focus, more support is going to govt.-mandated net neutrality, he said. “IFC members certainly didn’t talk to me or any principal members of our coalition… but there’s still time,” Meisner said.
Telcos and their supporters fogged the facts, Meisner said. “If much of what the network operators are saying were true, I'd be on their side. Unfortunately there’s a fair amount of distortion and misinformation going on,” said Meisner, a self-described “conservative, deregulatory guy.” The free market should have a chance to work, but without net neutrality there isn’t a competitive marketplace, and “there won’t be one anytime soon,” he said.
IFC mainly will use the Web to fight the net neutrality proposal, Wright said. E-mail campaigns, Internet banner ads, Web marketing and online outreach are in the works, Americans for Prosperity Exec. Dir. Michelle Korsmo said. And ATR will score any floor vote in the House or Senate on net neutrality, the group said.