North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan plans to once again reintroduce a bill in January that would stop Internet providers from blocking certain kinds of web content. Senator Dorgan and Senator Olympia Snowe already introduced a similar bill together in January of 2007, referred to as the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, but as an amendment to a larger video franchise reform bill. That bill ended with the vote to add it to the bill as an 11-11 tie, meaning the amendment did not pass.
Of course Verizon (VZ)(who's FiOS service I use), AT&T (T) and others oppose the bill and when you read some of their quotes on the subject, you have to wonder how dumb they think we all are? Verizon has stated, "...Net Regulation, is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist," and "There is a ‘disconnect’ between consumers’ desires for new products and services and the stifling effects of this bill."
Problem that does not exist? Have they seen what Comcast (CMCSA) has been in the news for lately? And forget "new products and services" that consumers want, how about being more concerned with the products and services we have today.
With all that has gone on in the past year, I'm interested to see if Senator Dorgan's bill in January will be the same as the one he proposed in the past, or if any changes have been made to it. I've contacted his office and am waiting to hear back from them if they have any outline of the bill that they can share.
Disclosure: None
