AdAge reports that Internet businesses and consumer groups don’t want the U.S. Senate to reject net neutrality legislation the way the House of Representatives did. To avoid giving another victory to nation’s phone companies, Google, Yahoo and other Web giants plan to launch an unprecedented grass-roots marketing campaign targeting Web users.
This sparks a few thoughts and questions for me:
- Finally, the non-telecom Internet-based businesses are taking a stand.
- The non-telecom Internet-based businesses are rightly targeting their consumer customers, who would be impacted. As I said earlier, it is the heavy users of social media and other online services who will protest the most.
- How much are Internet businesses standing up for consumers versus themselves. And are consumers properly being represented in this debate?
- I’ve heard lots of discussion about alternative means of hi-speed internet access, but how long will it really be before there are alternatives to the usual telecoms?
- Maybe all the non-telecom Internet businesses should start a consortium to seriously fund and implement a telecom alternative for hi-speed access — call it a cooperative pipeline, for which they all pay dues.