Neutrality campaigners plan protest at Google HQ

 

Gallery

By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 13 Aug 2010 at 14:20

Free internet campaigners are calling on supporters to take their frustrations over Google's recent net neutrality deal with Verizon onto the streets, with a protest planned outside the web giant's headquarters.

The rally is being organised by ColorofChange.org, Credo Action, MoveOn.org, Free Press and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, groups which are fiercely opposed to anything that threatens net neutrality, the concept of treating every piece of data equally.

We need Google to see our outrage in person

The concerns centre on a deal struck by Verizon and Google in which companies proposed that regulators should be able to police web traffic over cable and telephone lines, but carriers should control the speed of access to content on mobile devices.

“Letters and phone calls simply aren’t enough to protest Google’s and Verizon’s side plot to takeover the internet,” said the Free Press's Megan Tady in her Save the Internet blog. “We need Google to see our outrage in person – which is why everyone who can should get themselves to this protest outside of Google headquarters.

“Nearly everyone has trashed this deal as a giant corporate power-grab, and more than 300,000 people have signed petitions challenging Google to stand by its own 'don’t be evil' motto and to drop its disastrous proposal," she added. "The Google-Verizon pact would create two separate, unequal sections of the internet — a high-speed and exclusive fast lane for big business, and a slow lane, the "public internet" that would be available to the rest of us.”

The protesters hope their stand will also sway FFC chairman Julius Genachowski, who is currently weighing up how to govern net neutrality issues in the US.

Google denies selling out

Despite the furore and rumours that it was making deal concerning mobile networks in a bid to further its Android mobile phone platform, Google says it has not “sold out”.

“No other company is working as tirelessly for an open internet," claimed Richard Whitt, Google's Washington telecom and media counsel.

The rally is due to start at high noon in Mountain View, California.