Small ISPs Oppose Congresses's Move to Abolish Privacy Protections

Call your Representative now!

The Internet is up in arms over Congress's plan to drastically reduce your privacy online, and that includes small Internet providers and networking companies. Many of them agree that we need the Federal Communication Commission's rules to protect our privacy online, and seventeen of them have written to Congress today to express their concerns.

The situation before the FCC’s intervention was succinctly described in the fine print of Verizon’s privacy policy:  “If you do not want information collected for marketing purposes from services such as the Verizon Wireless Mobile Internet services, you should not use those particular services.” That was refreshingly honest. Other ISPs including AT&T, Charter, and Sprint also monitored their customers in intrusive ways, but were less frank in admitting it, even in their privacy policies.

Below is a letter signed by several small Internet providers who share our concerns. Add your voices to theirs: call your Representative today and tell them not to repeal the broadband privacy rules!

Dear U.S. Representatives,

We, the undersigned founders, executives, and employees of ISPs and networking companies, spend our working lives ensuring that Americans have high-quality, fast, reliable, and locally provided choices available when they need to connect to the Internet. One of the cornerstones of our businesses is respecting the privacy of our customers, and it is for that primary reason that we are writing to you today.

We urge Congress to preserve the FCC’s Broadband Privacy Rules and vote down plans to abolish them. If the rules are repealed, large ISPs across America would resume spying on their customers, selling their data, and denying them a practical and informed choice in the matter.

Perhaps if there were a healthy, free, transparent, and competitive market for Internet services in this country, consumers could choose not to use those companies’ products. But small ISPs like ours face many structural obstacles, and many Americans have very limited choices: a monopoly or duopoly on the wireline side, and a highly consolidated cellular market dominated by the same wireline firms.

Under those circumstances, the FCC’s Broadband Privacy Rules are the only way that most Americans will retain the free market choice to browse the Web without being surveilled by the company they pay for an Internet connection.

Signed,

Sonic
Monkeybrains.net
Cruzio Internet
Etheric Networks
University of Nebraska
CREDO Mobile
Aeneas Communications
Digital Service Consultants Inc.
Om Networks
Hoyos Consulting LLC
Mother Lode Internet
Gold Rush Internet
Andrew Buker (Director of Infrastructure Services & Research computing, University of Nebraska at Omaha)
Tim Pozar (co-founder, TwoP LLC)
Andrew Gallo (Senior Network Architect for a regional research and education network)
Jim Deleskie (co-founder, Mimir networks)
Randy Carpenter (VP, First Network Group)
Kraig Beahn (CTO, Enguity Technology Corp)

If you run a small ISP and would like to join our letter, send an email to [email protected].

Take part in the action!