Posts from February 2012

There's No Such Thing as the Tooth Fairy -- or Data Hogs [UPDATE]
Josh Levy
February 27, 2012

Let’s not sugarcoat it: The wireless industry is a big racket.

Here’s one reason why: AT&T and Verizon are slowing down — or throttling — Internet access on smartphones, supposedly to manage congestion on their networks. Yet a new study supports what many of us have been saying all along: These companies aren’t throttling to save bandwidth.

They’re doing it to rip us off.

Mutant Broadband Bills Are Infecting Our Communities
Josh Levy
February 22, 2012

Should communities have a right to decide how residents get online? It sounds like a simple question. It isn’t.

The notion of self-determination is fundamental to our self-identify, our politics and the way we construct our communities. And while we all have different interpretations of what “the right to self-determination” means, most of us can agree that it’s a bad thing when governments try to take it away.

The Payroll Tax and the Public Airwaves: What's It All About?
Josh Levy
February 17, 2012

Congress just voted on a bill that extends the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits. A significant provision will determine the future of a large portion of the public airwaves, or spectrum. That the New York Times gave this issue — ordinarily covered only in tech journals — front-page treatment speaks volumes.

Mike D: Fighting for Your Right to Get Online
Amy Kroin
February 15, 2012

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 SOPA/PIPA Money Trail
Josh Levy
February 7, 2012

Before the Web blacked out to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — the Internet-censorship bills that faced massive opposition online — there was another SOPA blackout. This one came courtesy of the TV news networks, which almost uniformly ignored SOPA and PIPA until it was impossible not to.

A Media Matters report showed that in the run-up to Jan. 18, when Wikipedia, Google, Reddit and other big sites joined millions of Internet users in one of the biggest online protests to date, only CNN mentioned SOPA and/or PIPA in its nightly news coverage.

Censorship U? [UPDATE]
Josh Levy
February 3, 2012

Great news. Last night, thanks to the rapid response of Free Press activists, Arizona State University lifted its blocking of student access to Change.org.

We hope ASU understands that it must put the free speech rights of its students first. Free Press has asked the university to scrutinize its Internet-use policies to ensure they don’t compromise these online freedoms. 

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