Meg Whitman urges congress to take action against internet providers
Published June 3rd, 2006
EBay Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman has urged more than 1 million EBay users to ask Congress to bar Internet providers including AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. from charging companies for priority access to their networks.
“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,” Whitman said in an e-mail the company has been sending to groups of customers since May 30. The e-mail has gone out to more than 1 million EBay users so far, company spokeswoman Catherine England said today.
Whitman’s letter comes as the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to vote on a bill that would prohibit broadband operators from blocking customers’ access to certain content or services. EBay is among companies urging lawmakers to add tougher “network neutrality” rules to the bill to ensure that content providers receive equal treatment from network operators.
Whether such rules are needed is one of the most divisive issues Congress has faced in revising the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Telephone and cable companies have invested billions of dollars in their networks and may
seek to charge content providers to recoup some costs. They have pledged not to block subscribers’ access to legal content or services.
San Jose, California-based EBay, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are among companies pushing lawmakers to ensure they can transmit content such as video at the same speeds as similar products from broadband providers without incurring additional fees. A vote on the House bill could come as early as next week.
Phone companies including New York-based Verizon Communications Inc., which support the House bill, oppose so-called net-neutrality rules. That type of regulation would “put the Internet at risk” by stifling investment in broadband networks, Verizon spokesman David Fish said in an e-mail today.
AT&T, based in San Antonio, are the No. 1 and No. 2 U.S. phone companies. EBay is the world’s largest Internet auctioneer.
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