WASHINGTON - August 5 - FCC Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus called off closed-door negotiations with major ISPs and Internet companies on Thursday, pledging "to seek broad input on this vital issue." The announcement comes in the wake of news that Verizon and Google are hatching plans to abandon open Internet protections. Both the corporate deal-making and the closed-door meetings have generated widespread public outrage.

After today's FCC meeting, Chairman Julius Genachowski said: "Any outcome, any deal that doesn't preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs will be unacceptable."

Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner made the following statement:

"We welcome the FCC's decision to end its backroom meetings. Phones have been ringing off the hook and e-mail inboxes overflowing at the FCC, as an outraged public learned about the closed-door deal-making and saw the biggest players trying to carve up the Internet for themselves. We're relieved to see that the FCC now apparently finds dangerous side deals from companies like Verizon and Google to be distasteful and unproductive.

"Now the FCC must match the chairman's words with decisive actions. We need our leaders in Washington to make the tough decisions and take on the difficult task of standing up to entrenched interests and pushing forward strong rules that will protect Internet users everywhere. Today, Julius Genachowski and the FCC took a big step back from the brink and gave everyone who cares about the free an open Internet reason to be hopeful that they still might do the right thing."

WASHINGTON - August 9 - Free Press, MoveOn.org Civic Action, CREDO Action, the Progressive Campaign Change Committee and ColorofChange.org today delivered petitions on behalf of more than 300,000 people challenging Google to stand by its "don't be evil" motto and to call off a deal with Verizon that would jeopardize the future of the open Internet.

"Google's self-proclaimed motto is ‘don't be evil,' but Google is about to cut a deal with Verizon that would end the Internet as we know it," said Becky Bond, political director of CREDO Action. "Google's corporate leadership needs to listen to its users and return to its roots as a strong defender of Net Neutrality."

"Google has always presented itself as a different kind of corporate entity," added Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org. "The fact that they are involved in a deal that would kill Internet freedom directly contradicts this image. We hope that Google will reconsider before they are seen as just another giant corporation out to make a buck regardless of the consequence."

The massive public outcry came in response to news last week that Verizon and Google had struck a deal that would allow Internet service providers to charge for content carried over their networks. The deal, which is expected to be formally announced as soon as today, also reportedly would encourage discrimination on wireless networks and leave the Federal Communications Commission powerless to protect Internet users.

"It shouldn't be left to the whims of two companies to decide for the rest of us how the Internet works," said Josh Silver, president of Free Press. "We've seen the disasters that can happen when industry giants are left to regulate themselves. Unless we want to see the Internet go the way of the Gulf of Mexico and AIG, our leaders in Washington need to reject the Google-Verizon deal and get back to making policies that truly protect Internet users and the open Internet."

Today, the groups delivered the petitions - which have poured in since last Thursday - directly to Google's offices in Washington, D.C.

"Within days, over 300,000 people have said no to any deal between Google and Verizon that would destroy the free and open Internet," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "The future of free speech and economic innovation is at stake and thousands of Progressive Change Campaign Committee members are proud to add our names to this important fight."

The groups will be calling on the FCC, Congress and the White House to safeguard Net Neutrality and establish lasting protections for free speech online. "An open Internet, free from corporate gatekeepers, is critical for the survival of our community's political voice," said James Rucker, executive director of ColorofChange.org. "Neither Google, nor Verizon, nor any corporation should be allowed to restructure the Internet just for purposes of profit. And this is why the ColorOfChange.org community continues to call for the FCC to protect the open Internet."

WASHINGTON - August 9 - In response to today's announcement by Google and Verizon that the two companies had established a joint policy proposal for the open Internet, Free Press Political Adviser Joel Kelsey issued the following statement:

"Google and Verizon can try all they want to disguise this deal as a reasonable path forward, but the simple fact is this framework, if embraced by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, would transform the free and open Internet into a closed platform like cable television. This is much worse than a business arrangement between two companies. It's a signed-sealed-and-delivered policy framework with giant loopholes that blesses the carving up of the Internet for a few deep-pocketed Internet companies and carriers.

"If codified, this arrangement will lead to toll booths on the information superhighway. It will lead to outright blocking of applications and content on increasingly popular wireless platforms. It would give companies like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T the right to decide which content will move fast and which should be slowed down. And it will destroy the open Internet as a platform for small business innovation and job creation, cementing companies', like Google's, dominant market power online.

"Still worse, this deal proposes to keep the FCC from making rules at all. Instead of an even playing field for everyone, it proposes taking up complaints on a case-by-case basis, or even leaving it up to third-party industry groups to decide what the rules should be. The only good news is that neither of these companies is actually in charge of writing the rules that govern the future of the Internet. That is supposed to be the job of our leaders in Washington.

"Congress and the FCC should reject Verizon and Google's plans to carve up the Internet for the private benefit of deep-pocketed special interests, and move forward with policies that preserve the open Internet for all. This begins with the FCC reasserting its authority over broadband to ensure it can protect the open Internet and promote universal access to affordable, world-class quality broadband.

"The Internet is one of our nation's most important resources, and policymakers everywhere should recognize that the future of our innovation economy is far too important to be decided by a backroom deal between industry giants."

Read the Free Press fact sheet "How the Google-Verizon Deal Threatens to Destroy the Open Internet": http://www.freepress.net/files/carving_up_the_internet.pdf

WASHINGTON - August 9 - In response to Google and Verizon's "policy framework" unveiled today, MoveOn.Org Civic Action, Credo Action, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, ColorofChange.org and Free Press, all members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition, issued the following joint statement:

"The Google-Verizon pact isn't just as bad as we feared - it's much worse. They are attacking the Internet while claiming to preserve it. Google users won't be fooled.

"They are promising Net Neutrality only for a certain part of the Internet, one that they'll likely stop investing in. But they are also paving the way for a new 'Internet' via fiber and wireless phones where Net Neutrality will not apply and corporations can pick and choose which sites people can easily view on their phones or any other Internet device using these networks.

"It would open the door to outright blocking of applications, just as Comcast did with BitTorrent, or the blocking of content, just as Verizon did with text messages from NARAL Pro-choice America. It would divide the information superhighway, creating new private fast lanes for the big players while leaving the little guy stranded on a winding dirt road.

"Worse still, this pact would turn the Federal Communications Commission into a toothless watchdog, left fruitlessly chasing complaints and unable to make rules of its own.

"This is not real Net Neutrality. And this pact would harm the millions of Americans who have pleaded with our leaders in Washington to defend the free and open Internet. President Obama, Congress and the FCC should reject this deal, restore the authority of the agency that's supposed to protect Internet users, and safeguard Net Neutrality once and for all."

WASHINGTON - August 13 - In reply comments filed yesterday with the Federal Communications Commission, Free Press debunked industry arguments against the agency's proposal to re-establish a legal framework that allows it to set broadband policy. Free Press called for the FCC to move forward quickly with a vote on Chairman Julius Genachowski’s “third way” proposal so the agency can continue to protect consumers and promote innovation in the broadband marketplace.

S. Derek Turner, Free Press research director, said:

"The FCC cannot carry out the National Broadband Plan or protect Internet users unless it restores its authority to regulate broadband. The FCC chairman’s proposal is a sensible, limited revision that rescues the agency from a failed legal experiment conducted by the previous administration. In this proceeding, the phone and cable companies and other reflexive opponents of regulation use breathless hyperbole and veiled threats to obscure the basic fact that the FCC must be able to exercise basic oversight over the communications networks of the 21st century.

"We urge the Commission to follow through on its sensible proposal, ignore the cynical attacks of industry-funded critics, and focus on its duty to faithfully implement the Communications Act. America has already lost too much waiting for the agency to formulate a national broadband policy, and it would be irresponsible to delay further simply because industry wishes for the FCC to have no authority over broadband communications."

WASHINGTON - August 18 - The Wall Street Journal reports that "broadband and telecommunications lobbyists restarted talks Wednesday to agree to a proposal for how Internet traffic should be managed." The talks are being held at the offices of the Information Technology Industry Council, a lobbying group that represents dozens of technology companies.

Free Press Policy Counsel Aparna Sridhar made the following statement:

"Industry deal-making is no substitute for responsible policymaking. This latest effort by a few large companies to dictate the rules behind closed doors will not protect Internet users. Industry titans will propose rules that serve only their own interests. The uproar over the Verizon-Google deal leaves no room for doubt that the public rejects these secretive negotiations - and so should the FCC.

"It's time for the FCC to take back its role as a policymaking body and act quickly to re-establish its authority over broadband and to adopt meaningful rules to protect the openness of the Internet for all Americans."

WASHINGTON - August 24 - Verizon's top lobbyist Tom Tauke gave a speech yesterday at an industry-sponsored forum where, according to various press reports, he defended his company's recent Net Neutrality pact with Google.

Tauke claimed that the two companies’ proposal “fulfills the president's campaign promise of non-discrimination and transparency on the Internet," but the pact would exclude all wireless Internet connections, and would even go so far as to bar the Federal Communications Commission from having any authority to make and enforce Net Neutrality rules, instead requiring it to defer to a third-party industry group.

Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner made the following statement:

"Verizon is simply dead wrong in claiming their farce of a framework would fulfill President Obama's Net Neutrality promises. Verizon can't hide the fact that, if enacted, this pact would mark the end of the open Internet era.

“The Google-Verizon deal contains no protections for wireless access, which accounts for nearly one-third of all Internet connections, giving Verizon and other ISPs the green light to block or degrade content on their wireless networks. In addition, it would allow Internet service providers to discriminate online by offering private Internet services alongside those on the "public" Internet. As a candidate, Obama himself opposed the two-tiered Internet this proposal would create.

“Verizon and Google’s proposal, despite Tauke’s claims, is far weaker than the framework proposed by Chairman Genachowski last fall, and far worse than numerous bipartisan legislative proposals offered in Congress over the past several years.

"The simple fact is Verizon and Google cooked this scheme to carve up the Internet among themselves and other industry giants because they fear competition on the free and open Internet. It's up to Chairman Genachowski and the FCC, not Verizon or Google, to fulfill President Obama's promises to preserve Net Neutrality."

WASHINGTON - September 8 - AT&T filed a letter last week with the Federal Communications Commission claiming its plans for "paid prioritization" arrangements were supported by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the international body that develops and promotes Internet standards. In its letter, which attempted to conflate AT&T's anti-consumer plans with accepted business-class network management practices, the company stated that paid prioritization "was fully contemplated by the IETF."

The IETF, however, disputes AT&T's claims. "This characterization of the IETF standard and the use of the term 'paid prioritization' by AT&T is misleading," IETF Chairman Russ Housley told the National Journal. "IETF prioritization technology is geared toward letting network users indicate how they want network providers to handle their traffic, and there is no implication in the IETF about payment based on any prioritization."

"It's obvious that what AT&T calls 'paid prioritization' is just another way of trying to get around the principle of the free, open and non-discriminatory Internet," said Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge. "The Internet Engineering Task Force was right to call out AT&T for this mischaracterization, and the FCC should reject the idea entirely."

Today, several leading public interest groups called on AT&T to publicly retract its recent letter to the FCC, and asked the company to stop misleading the agency on this crucial issue at a critical moment in the development of open Internet policy.

"AT&T should immediately retract its inaccurate and misleading letter and apologize to the FCC for unnecessarily muddying the very important debate over the future of the Internet," said S. Derek Turner, research director at Free Press. "Unfortunately, the fact that AT&T has instead chosen to buy ads promoting its attempts to mislead policymakers indicates that the company's priorities do not include participating in reality-based policy debates."

The groups urged AT&T to publicly reject the practice of paid prioritization and affirm its support for FCC rules on Net Neutrality like those AT&T operated under for two years following its merger with Bell South. Under those conditions, AT&T agreed that it would not "provide or sell to Internet content, application, or service providers ... any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet ... based on its source, ownership or destination."

"The dispute with AT&T over the IETF DiffServ architecture underscores how important it is for the FCC to adopt and enforce a clear policy to prevent discrimination on the Internet," said Mark Cooper, director of research at Consumer Federation of America. "AT&T's misinterpretation of the IETF DiffServ architecture and its subsequent campaign of disinformation, like last month's Google-Verizon deal, show that the network operators put their private interests above the public interest and are willing to bend and break technical network management principles at the expense of the open Internet."

Last week, the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation challenged AT&T, filing a letter of its own distinguishing between harmful paid prioritization and legitimate business practices.

"Our response letter to the FCC focused on AT&T's disingenuous interpretation of IETF's work; however, we have other serious concerns with AT&T's recent letter to the FCC," said Sascha Meinrath, director of OTI. "We are still waiting for the FCC to investigate whether AT&T engaged in any activity that violated the conditions of its merger with Bell South."

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior vice president and policy director of Media Access Project, added: "AT&T should take this episode as an opportunity to elevate the debate by making it clear that it has not previously engaged in paid prioritization and by explaining why it thinks it needs to change its practices going forward."

The groups emphasized the need for honest public debate and for policymakers to recognize attempts to camouflage anti-consumer proposals.

"The public is tired of companies like AT&T misleading them in order to block public interest policies," said Beth McConnell, executive director of the Media & Democracy Coalition. 'It's time for policymakers in Washington D.C. to reject AT&T's deceptive tactics, and instead to adopt common sense rules to protect consumers online."