Interesting Ebay email

[seenbad]

Anybody else get this? I didn't know this was being proposed anywhere, but it sucks ass! I sent letters off to my reps.

Dear xxxxxxx,

As you know, I almost never reach out to you personally with a request to get involved in a debate in the U.S. Congress. However, today I feel I must.

Right now, the telephone and cable companies in control of Internet access are trying to use their enormous political muscle to dramatically change the Internet. It might be hard to believe, but lawmakers in Washington are seriously debating whether consumers should be free to use the Internet as they want in the future.

The phone and cable companies now control more than 95% of all Internet access. These large corporations are spending millions of dollars to promote legislation that would divide the Internet into a two-tiered system.

The top tier would be a "Pay-to-Play" high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net.

The bottom tier -- the slow lane -- would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information "super-highway," the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road.

Today's Internet is an incredible open marketplace for goods, services, information and ideas. We can't give that up. A two lane system will restrict innovation because start-ups and small companies -- the companies that can't afford the high fees -- will be unable to succeed, and we'll lose out on the jobs, creativity and inspiration that come with them.

The power belongs with Internet users, not the big phone and cable companies. Let's use that power to send as many messages as possible to our elected officials in Washington. Please join me by clicking here right now to send a message to your representatives in Congress before it is too late. You can make the difference.

Thank you for reading this note. I hope you'll make your voice heard today.

Sincerely,

Meg Whitman
President and CEO
eBay Inc.

P.S. If you have any questions about this issue, please contact us at government_relations@ebay.com.

[tahoewabo]

I didn't get one of these letters, but I keep getting notices from eBay saying I have to update my profile with them. The only problem is is the email address I get the notices sent to is not the email I use for eBay.

[CaboBrian]

There is a lot going around the internet about this. Here is some more information.

http://techsearch.cmp.com/blog/archi...eb_development

If it passes, using the Internet isn't going to be much fun anymore. Sometimes I long for the days when only us computer geeks knew about the Internet and we didn't have to worry about viruses, spam, phishing, and stupid bills in Congress.

[BradS]

I'm contacting the reps. This is bullshit.

[Junior]

I'm contacting the reps. This is bullshit.

Me too. That dog won't hunt.

[Greenpaw]

I didn't get one of these letters, but I keep getting notices from eBay saying I have to update my profile with them. The only problem is is the email address I get the notices sent to is not the email I use for eBay.

THose emails are bullshit, here's some info on that scam:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/scams/phishing/ebay02.asp

[Bob_R]

Here's another article on the subject.

I think this proposed change is bullshit.

What's happening to our freedom and rights?



Coming soon: The Web toll
New laws may transform cyberspace and the way you surf it
By Tim Folger
Popular Science

Thursday, May 25, 2006; Posted: 11:00 a.m. EDT (15:00 GMT)

A two-tiered Internet would create a fast lane for Web sites able to afford it and a slow lane for everyone else.

(PopSci.com) -- What if the Internet were like cable television, with Web sites grouped like channels into either basic or premium offerings? What if a few big companies decided which sites loaded quickly and which ones slowly, or not at all, on your computer?

Welcome to the brave new Web, brought to you by Verizon, Bell South, AT&T and the other telecommunications giants (including PopSci and CNN.com's parent company, Time Warner) that are now lobbying Congress to block laws that would prevent a two-tiered Internet, with a fast lane for Web sites able to afford it and a slow lane for everyone else.

Specifically, such companies want to charge Web sites for the speedy delivery of streaming video, television, movies and other high-bandwidth data to their customers. If they get their way (Congress may vote on the matter before the year is out), the days of wide-open cyberspace are numbered.

As things stand now, the telecoms provide the lines -- copper, cable or fiber-optic -- and the other hardware that connects Web sites to consumers.

But they don't influence, or profit from, the content that flows to you from, say, cinemanow.com; they simply supply the pipelines. In effect, they are impartial middlemen, leaving you free to browse the entire Internet without worrying about connection speeds to your favorite sites.

That looks set to change. In April a House subcommittee rejected a measure by Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts (D) that would have prevented telecoms from charging Web sites extra fees based on bandwidth usage.

The telecom industry sees such remuneration as fair compensation for the substantial cost of maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure that makes high-bandwidth services, such as streaming video, possible.

Christopher Yoo, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, argues that consumers should be willing to pay for faster delivery of content on the Internet, just as many FedEx customers willingly shell out extra for overnight delivery. "A regulatory approach that allows companies to pursue a strategy like FedEx's makes sense," he says.

On a technical level, creating this so-called Internet fast lane is easy. In the current system, network devices called differentiated service routers prioritize data, assigning more bandwidth to, for example, an Internet telephone call or streaming video than to an e-mail message.

With a tiered Internet, such routing technology could be used preferentially to deliver either the telecoms' own services or those of companies who had paid the requisite fees.

What does this mean for the rest of us? A stealth Web tax, for one thing.

"Google and Amazon and Yahoo are not going to slice those payments out of their profit margins and eat them," says Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, a nonprofit group that monitors media-related legislation. "They're going to pass them on to the consumer. So I'll end up paying twice. I'm going to pay my $29.99 a month for access, and then I'm going to pay higher prices for consumer goods all across the economy because these Internet companies will charge more for online advertising."

Worse still, Scott argues, the plan stands to sour your Web experience. If, for instance, your favorite blogger refused to ante up, her pages would load more slowly on your computer than would content from Web sites that had paid the fees.

Which brings up another sticking point: A tiered system would give established companies with deep pockets a huge competitive edge over cash-strapped start-ups consigned to slow lanes.

"We have to remember that some of the companies that we now consider to be titans of the Internet started literally as guys in a garage," Scott says."That's the beauty and the brilliance of the Internet, yet we're cavalierly talking about tossing it out the window."

[Buckeye]

This CONSERVATIVE ALERT is a special message from RightMarch.com:

ALERT: A coalition of mostly left-wing organizations, led by the wanna-be socialists at MoveOn.org, is helping to push legislation through the U.S. House that they're calling "Net Neutrality" -- but the effect that it would have would be to impose government regulations on the Internet!

They MUST be stopped -- before it's too late.

The new bill they're pushing, the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act" (H.R. 5417), has been strongly opposed by advocates of free markets and a free Internet -- but it's been passed out of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, and is due to be voted on quickly.

Thankfully, there are some Congressmen willing to stand up to MoveOn and their cronies. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) noted a number of his concerns as the committee was debating the bill, stating, "It is a well-intentioned bill that would certainly prohibit some anticompetitive conduct. The problem is that it would also prohibit a lot of conduct that is procompetitive."

Suppose, for example, that an innovative company wants to provide a new video service that requires greater bandwidth than most existing products. Suppose that a broadband provider has the capacity to provide that extra bandwidth to one company, but not to six companies. Under this bill's prohibition on any discrimination in the broadband provider's terms or conditions of service, it would not be able to offer the extra bandwidth to the one innovative company because it would then be required to provide it to all.

As Rep. Smith notes, "This is a regulator's dream, but an entrepreneur's nightmare."

Preemptively legislating new regulatory burdens can also have many unintended consequences. Stated Rep. Smith, "I am particularly concerned about the effects on intellectual property protection."

For example, the bill says that a broadband provider cannot block access to lawful content. How does that apply when users subscribe to a peer-to-peer file sharing network that is primarily used for infringing purposes, but may also include some lawful content?

It's also unclear how broadband providers would comply with some of the provisions. For example, the bill provides that a broadband provider must clearly and conspicuously disclose to users, in plain language, accurate information concerning the terms and conditions of its service. That is so broad and vague that you can't be sure how anyone could know what it meant as a practical matter. But if the broadband providers violate that requirement, they are subject to all the remedies of the antitrust laws, including treble damages.

As Jason Wright of the Institute for Liberty noted, "The leftist Moveon.org coalition claims that so-called 'Net Neutrality' rules are the 'First Amendment' for the internet. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The unprecedented regulation Moveon lobbies for limits innovation by restricting certain businesses from the option of seeking more reliable connections to support advanced services like VoIP or IPTV."

We need to STOP MoveOn.org and their liberal allies -- before they start a snowball effect of government regulations over the internet.

TAKE ACTION: The point is that it is very difficult to write rules for how the Internet should grow. So far, it's done a pretty good job of growing on its own. And it's the uncertain and unpredictable effect of the bill is what makes it worrisome.

Even a coalition of first responders has expressed their concern that the bill could potentially affect the development of new technologies to address interoperability.

Instead of writing proscriptive rules to solve speculative problems, it would be better to focus our efforts on preserving the application of current antitrust laws to safeguard against anticompetitive practices on the Internet.

So-called "net neutrality" is anything BUT neutral. There's nothing neutral about the government: dictating one, and ONLY one, way to design networks; creating an innovation double standard where innovation at the edge of the network is encouraged but discouraged inside the network; or rigging the game by picking winners before the game is played. And THAT is what MoveOn.org and their friends are pushing.

The fact is, "net neutrality" is the epitome of a solution in search of a problem. Click below NOW to send a free message directly to your Congressman, telling him to OPPOSE the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act" (H.R. 5417), and keep the federal government AWAY from the world's freest, fairest market... the internet

http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=8817151&type=CO

NOTE: There are a lot of potential unintended consequences from "net neutrality" legislation that the far left doesn't want you to know about: it could hinder public safety and homeland security; complicate protecting Americans privacy; erode the quality and responsiveness of the Internet; limit consumers' competitive choices; and discourage investment in broadband deployment to all Americans. Let's "nip this in the bud" NOW. For more info:

http://www.handsoff.org/

http://www.netcompetition.org/

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=14435

Be sure to send this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help expand consumer choices and opportunities on the internet, without worrying about more government regulation. Thank you!

Sincerely,

William Greene, President
RightMarch.com

[Bob_R]

Buckeye,

Thanks so much for that post.

The first 2 of the 4 links you provided are not clickable. Could you please fix them if possible?

Thanks.

[perticelli]

just remember. Ebay says it will never contact you and ask you for anything whatsoever,via email.
nuff said.

As for congress, WE only have ourselves to blame..a revolution must come sooner or later to remind these fat fucks who it is they work for. Not their fat asses, but ours, whether they get fringes or not.
Until then, they will take us for all they can, country be damned.

[Bob_R]

I've already sent this to about 25 people. I suggest everyone do the same.

This CONSERVATIVE ALERT is a special message from RightMarch.com:

ALERT: A coalition of mostly left-wing organizations, led by the wanna-be socialists at MoveOn.org, is helping to push legislation through the U.S. House that they're calling "Net Neutrality" -- but the effect that it would have would be to impose government regulations on the Internet!

They MUST be stopped -- before it's too late.

The new bill they're pushing, the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act" (H.R. 5417), has been strongly opposed by advocates of free markets and a free Internet -- but it's been passed out of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, and is due to be voted on quickly.

Thankfully, there are some Congressmen willing to stand up to MoveOn and their cronies. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) noted a number of his concerns as the committee was debating the bill, stating, "It is a well-intentioned bill that would certainly prohibit some anticompetitive conduct. The problem is that it would also prohibit a lot of conduct that is procompetitive."

Suppose, for example, that an innovative company wants to provide a new video service that requires greater bandwidth than most existing products. Suppose that a broadband provider has the capacity to provide that extra bandwidth to one company, but not to six companies. Under this bill's prohibition on any discrimination in the broadband provider's terms or conditions of service, it would not be able to offer the extra bandwidth to the one innovative company because it would then be required to provide it to all.

As Rep. Smith notes, "This is a regulator's dream, but an entrepreneur's nightmare."

Preemptively legislating new regulatory burdens can also have many unintended consequences. Stated Rep. Smith, "I am particularly concerned about the effects on intellectual property protection."

For example, the bill says that a broadband provider cannot block access to lawful content. How does that apply when users subscribe to a peer-to-peer file sharing network that is primarily used for infringing purposes, but may also include some lawful content?

It's also unclear how broadband providers would comply with some of the provisions. For example, the bill provides that a broadband provider must clearly and conspicuously disclose to users, in plain language, accurate information concerning the terms and conditions of its service. That is so broad and vague that you can't be sure how anyone could know what it meant as a practical matter. But if the broadband providers violate that requirement, they are subject to all the remedies of the antitrust laws, including treble damages.

As Jason Wright of the Institute for Liberty noted, "The leftist Moveon.org coalition claims that so-called 'Net Neutrality' rules are the 'First Amendment' for the internet. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The unprecedented regulation Moveon lobbies for limits innovation by restricting certain businesses from the option of seeking more reliable connections to support advanced services like VoIP or IPTV."

We need to STOP MoveOn.org and their liberal allies -- before they start a snowball effect of government regulations over the internet.

TAKE ACTION: The point is that it is very difficult to write rules for how the Internet should grow. So far, it's done a pretty good job of growing on its own. And it's the uncertain and unpredictable effect of the bill is what makes it worrisome.

Even a coalition of first responders has expressed their concern that the bill could potentially affect the development of new technologies to address interoperability.

Instead of writing proscriptive rules to solve speculative problems, it would be better to focus our efforts on preserving the application of current antitrust laws to safeguard against anticompetitive practices on the Internet.

So-called "net neutrality" is anything BUT neutral. There's nothing neutral about the government: dictating one, and ONLY one, way to design networks; creating an innovation double standard where innovation at the edge of the network is encouraged but discouraged inside the network; or rigging the game by picking winners before the game is played. And THAT is what MoveOn.org and their friends are pushing.

The fact is, "net neutrality" is the epitome of a solution in search of a problem. Click below NOW to send a free message directly to your Congressman, telling him to OPPOSE the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act" (H.R. 5417), and keep the federal government AWAY from the world's freest, fairest market... the internet

http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=8817151&type=CO

NOTE: There are a lot of potential unintended consequences from "net neutrality" legislation that the far left doesn't want you to know about: it could hinder public safety and homeland security; complicate protecting Americans privacy; erode the quality and responsiveness of the Internet; limit consumers' competitive choices; and discourage investment in broadband deployment to all Americans. Let's "nip this in the bud" NOW. For more info:

http://www.handsoff.org/

http://www.netcompetition.org/

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=14435

Be sure to send this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help expand consumer choices and opportunities on the internet, without worrying about more government regulation. Thank you!

Sincerely,

William Greene, President
RightMarch.com

[Mikey Metalhead]

this was proven a hoax LONG ago.

[Bob_R]

this was proven a hoax LONG ago.

Let me clarify for the other Linkers so there's no confusion.

The hoax is the 2nd post in this thread.

The original subject matter is very real.

[Buckeye]

Buckeye,

Thanks so much for that post.

The first 2 of the 4 links you provided are not clickable. Could you please fix them if possible?

Thanks.

My pleasure. This is VERY disturbing and it is shocking how little the general public knows about it. Coincidence? I think not. Anyway, I can't edit the post now, but if you copy and paste the URL into your browser. It should work just fine.

Contact your representatives folks, and let others know about this very real Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act H.R. 5417.

[Mikey Metalhead]

Let me clarify for the other Linkers so there's no confusion.

The hoax is the 2nd post in this thread.

The original subject matter is very real.

oh my bad, I confused this with a very simular hoax... this one is real, but comes down to an idea that probably made sense in someones head, but will most likely be abused. we will lose and the large corporations will win.
but we should be used to it by now