Internet Innovators Join Together for Net Neutrality

By Morgan Mayhew on October 19, 2009

Internet Innovators Join Together for Net Neutrality

Jeff Bezos, Kevin Rose, Craig Newmark, Eric Schmidt, Scott Heiferman, Evan Williams and many others have quite a bit in common these days.

All of the above are Internet innovators that combined entrepreneurial spirit with tech savvy to create online empires such as Amazon, Digg, Craig’s List, Google, Meetup and Twitter.

Now, these top minds have joined 21 other Internet brand leaders in a letter to Federal Communication Commission’s chairman, Julius Genachowski.

The 27 signers stated within the letter:

For most of the Internet’s history, FCC rules have ensured that consumers have been able to choose the content and services they want over their Internet connections. Entrepreneurs, technologists, and venture capitalists have previously been able to develop new online products and services with the guarantee of neutral, nondiscriminatory access by users, which has fueled an unprecedented era of economic growth and creativity. Existing businesses have been able to leverage the power of the Internet to develop innovative product lines, reach new consumers, and create new ways of doing business. An open Internet fuels a competitive and efficient marketplace, where consumers make the ultimate choices about which products succeed and which fail. This allows businesses of all sizes, from the smallest startup to larger corporations, to compete, yielding maximum economic growth and opportunity.

The FCC is expected to release new rules regarding so-called “Net Neutrality” later this week.

If instituted, Net Neutrality would prevent Internet Service Providers and other companies who control network access from giving one type of traffic priority over another. For instance, Net Neutrality would prevent connections provided from AT&T blocking or slowing down connections over Skype, a free Internet calling service.

Net Neutrality rules may also affect Apple who has been blocking certain software from their App Store for iPhones. Apple caused an uproar among users when they allegedly rejected Google Voice, an application that may have negatively impacted AT&T’s profit margin.