Implore U.S. House to support net neutrality

Treasure Coast Newspapers

The internet has flourished based upon the foundation and principles of net neutrality.

The term was actually first used to discuss protecting Americans after Comcast banned users from protecting their own online privacy and AT&T prevented customers from using their own wifi routers.

Since then, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile colluded with Google to block innovative apps from entering the marketplace.

In 2009, AT&T schemed with Apple to restrict access to Skype. In 2015, all five major ISPs actually slowed down 75 percent of all internet traffic simply to protest the FCC's rules.

Net neutrality ensures that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can't block, censor or throttle traffic to websites.

Without net neutrality, Comcast could legally slow down traffic to conservative sites and speed up traffic to its own news websites, like MSNBC. AT&T could incentivize its customers to watch CNN instead of Fox News. Verizon could be pressured to censor information about firearms in order to be politically correct.

Net neutrality protects the free market by preventing ISPs from picking winners and losers.

The Senate has already passed the Congressional Review Act to restore the open-internet rules. Congress can still save net neutrality — but it has only until the end of 2018 to do it.

On Jan. 3, a new Congress will be sworn in, and at that point we will lose the opportunity to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to restore the open internet-rules the FCC destroyed last year.

We need to do everything in our power to make sure our House reps know how important it is to maintain net neutrality.



Rhea McKenna, Vero Beach