12/16/09

Save The Internet | Support Net Neutrality

James Rucker, ColorOfChange.org




Help keep the Internet open and free -- and help support ColorOfChange

Big telecommunications companies are challenging the Internet's open nature. We're partnering with CREDO Action to tell the FCC to protect Internet freedom.
After you've signed, you can also vote for ColorOfChange on CREDO's 2009 Donations Ballot, which will help fund our work.

Want to help support the work of ColorOfChange.org without having to open your pocketbook?
Every year, our friends at CREDO Mobile donate a percentage of their revenue to groups working for a better world, and they let their members help decide where the money goes. This year, ColorOfChange.org was lucky to be selected as one of the beneficiaries — and you can help increase the amount of funding we get by voting for us on the 2009 Donations Ballot.
You have to be an active CREDO member to be eligible to vote, so we’ve made it easy by setting up a joint campaign on an issue important to both CREDO and ColorOfChange.org — Internet freedom, or “net neutrality.”
Net neutrality means that the smallest websites and blogs can compete on equal footing with the biggest companies, and it’s the reason the Internet is so diverse. ColorOfChange.org would never have succeeded without a free and open Internet, and neither would the thousands of Black blogs, online businesses, and news sites that have flourished in recent years. But big Internet service providers like Comcast are fighting hard against net neutrality so they can make millions by acting as a gatekeeper over what you see and do on the Internet.
You can help protect the Internet’s open nature, while at the same time helping to support ColorOfChange’s work, by taking action here:
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/3?akid=1319.238245.WyxPyl&t=1
Once you sign the petition you will be redirected to a thank-you page. Scroll down and click the button that says “vote now,” and you’ll be taken to the 2009 Donations Ballot. ColorOfChange.org is listed in the Voting Rights & Civic Participation category. We hope you’ll allocate all 100 votes to ColorOfChange.org! If you are already a CREDO member, we hope you will still take this action, and add your voice to the growing number of people demanding Internet freedom.
Net neutrality
With net neutrality, good ideas can find their audience online — whether or not not there’s money to promote them or money to be made from them. And all content is allowed, regardless of politics or corporate interests. Now, as they did with radio and then television, large corporations are trying to change the rules for the sake of increasing profits.
The goal of these companies is to create a system where some content is prioritized over other content, and where large corporations can pay for speedy access, while smaller organizations and start-ups are left in the slow lane. Such a system could drown out the smaller voices and prevent them from developing a following. The Internet would become less interesting and less diverse. In short, it could bring an end to the Internet as we know it, and bring about one that wouldn’t serve the public nearly as well as it does today.
Please help support a free and open Internet, and at the same time, help ColorOfChange.org, by signing this petition and then voting for us on CREDO’s ballot:
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/3?akid=1319.238245.WyxPyl&t=1
Thanks and Peace,
-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Milton and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
   December 16, 2009
To our Elected Officials, President Obama, and the FCC.
The Internet is a free superhighway that users access through payed ISP, Cable, Satellite, or WiMAX accounts. With so many other things going on in the world we can all communicate with a global community of supporters. Rich and poor share the same mediums. Don't make the less fortunate pay for more. When we cannot afford to pay for prescription medicine, credit cards, or our mortgages. Please keep the internet free!

Veronica Robinson