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| David
J. Farber |
| Peter G. Neumann |
| Lauren
Weinstein |
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| January
8, 2006 |
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A Letter to the Internet Community
The marvel that is the Internet is under an increasing barrage of
policy, regulatory, and related technologically-enabled attacks against
its fundamental open-access, "end-to-end" operational model.
Under the auspices of PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility), we
have established a new organization -- the International Open Internet
Coalition (IOIC) -- dedicated to the proposition that the Internet
should remain an open and neutral resource, free from unreasonable
interference or restrictions on the actions of businesses,
organizations, individuals, or others related to their access or use of
the Internet.
IOIC has been created as an entity to serve the common interests of
everyone concerned about the increasing levels of restrictions being
planned or implemented relating to the Internet and its
users. Such parties and stakeholders are likely to include
all manner of Web/Internet-based and other businesses, educational and
non-profit organizations, regulatory and government entities,
individual Internet users, and many others.
We cordially invite your participation in what will be a major, ongoing
effort for establishing, preserving, and promoting the critical
concepts of an Open Internet.
The attacks on the Open Internet model -- now seeming to spring forth
daily from a variety of powerful entities -- threaten to permanently
cripple or destroy the very aspects of the Internet that have turned it
into an indispensable utility for all manner of commerce, speech,
education, communication, entertainment, and many other major aspects
of people's lives.
Around the world, both domestic governments and increasingly large and
consolidated Internet Service Providers (ISPs) -- including ILECS,
cable companies, and other telecommunications firms engaging in ISP
activities -- restrict or threaten to restrict their citizens and
Internet users from access to outside Web services of all
sorts. The list of affected services includes search engines,
e-commerce sites, databases, e-mail, VoIP, audio and video
streaming/downloading, P2P and other legitimate file sharing
applications, discussion forums, and a wide range of others.
These have become the targets of controls and censorship directed
against the free flow of commerce, communications, free speech, and
other activities, implemented via throttling and limiting bandwidth to
subscribers and/or by totally blocking or disrupting specific services
and communication types.
In some cases, these moves are part of restrictive regulatory or
political agendas. In other cases, these actions or threats
of restrictions are key to carefully calculated plans by ISPs to give
"walled garden" preferential treatment to their own service offerings,
and to extract "premium access" fees from remote Web services and other
Internet services who are not their subscribers.
The range of issues that are of concern is vast, but the common thread
is clear. An Internet that is increasingly biased away from
being a neutral and open resource is at risk for serious degradation of
its commercial and social values and usefulness, and is ripe for
massive and dangerous abuses.
Our hope and expectation is that IOIC, by providing a focal point for
education, information, discussion, brainstorming, and strategic
planning relating to these issues, will be an effective force for
helping to assure the best possible Internet not only for its services
and users today, but for the future as well.
To participate in this effort or for more information, please send an
appropriate note (which will be read by a human!) to:
ioic@pfir.org
or
feel free to contact Lauren by phone (09:30-17:30 PST) via:
+1
(818) 225-2800
Thank
you very much for your consideration.
Sincerely,
David J. Farber
dave@farber.net
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber/
Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy,
Carnegie Mellon University
Tel: +1 (412) 726-9889
Peter G. Neumann
neumann@csl.sri.com
http://www.csl.sri.com/users/neumann/
Principal Scientist - Computer Science Lab, SRI International
Co-Founder, People For
Internet Responsibility
Chairman, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Tel: +1 (650) 859-2375
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, People For
Internet Responsibility
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
(Affiliations
shown for identification only.)
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