Mike D: Fighting for Your Right to Get Online

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission offered no bonbons and forget-me-nots for AT&T this Valentine’s Day. On Tuesday, the SEC told AT&T and other telecoms that they must include a resolution supporting wireless Net Neutrality in annual shareholder ballots. The SEC found no merit in AT&T’s claim that such a resolution would “interfere with its network management practices and seriously impair its ability to provide wireless broadband service to its customers.”

The SEC’s move comes in response to a request from a varied group of AT&T investors: the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, Inc., the social justice-oriented Nathan Cummings Foundation and Boston-based asset management firm Trillium.

Trillium represented a trio of AT&T investors in its complaint: Beastie Boy Mike D, Half-Baked director Tamra Davis (Mrs. Mike D) and John P. Silva, whose artist-management firm reps Beck, Sonic Youth and Tenacious D.

The shareholder resolution would recommend each company adhere to Net Neutrality principles in the operation of its wireless broadband network.

The SEC’s decision is welcome news for all of us who have argued that the Federal Communications Commission’s Net Neutrality rules need to be strengthened so that they cover users of wireless devices. Last September, Free Press filed a legal challenge to the FCC’s rules, arguing that they must protect users of the mobile Internet. As my colleague Josh Levy points out, “At this point, mobile devices are basically powerful computers — and in a few years they’ll be the main tools a majority of us use to get online — yet they’re being treated as second-rate citizens by corporate-captured Washington.”

If the shareholders at AT&T and other companies pass the resolution on wireless Net Neutrality — and if the telecoms actually comply with the resolution’s mandate — that will get us one step closer to a world in which true Net Neutrality reigns supreme.

If you care about the fight for Net Neutrality, consider a donation to the Free Press Action Fund. Thank you.

Photo credit: Michael Morel via Flickr

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