Steve MacLaughlin, Director of Internet Solutions, Blackbaud

Have you been following the Net Neutrality debate? You should. It might dramatically impact your nonprofit.

There's little doubt that most of us who use the Internet every day have at least heard about Net Neutrality. When pressed for details, though, many in the nonprofit community can't offer much of a definition.

Worse, most have no idea that it stands to severely restrict the way they communicate and serve their constituents.

In short, there are corporate entities trying to control what gets sent over the Internet, and the Internet as we know and love it today might be lost. Imagine trying to conduct an online fundraising campaign using Internet access from an Internet service provider (ISP) that doesn't agree with your mission or message. Right now they can legally restrict or slow your Internet connection. Think it can't happen? It already has. 

Sheldon Mains

You work in a nonprofit. By definition, your to-do list includes a lot of important things you need to get done, right now. It probably includes more important things than you have time to do. So, why would you be interested in the debate about getting broadband Internet access to under-served communities? Why should you be interested in esoteric issues like "net-neutrality?

Simply put, in the last 15 years, the Internet has become a necessity for participating in our society -- and in most cases, high speed Internet has become a necessity. If you care about your clients, if you care about your community, you need to care about the Internet.

On Monday, at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the FCC held a public hearing on "broadband network management practices". The hearing essentially asked if Comcast and other access providers should have the ability to favor one type of content over another on their networks.

The consensus seems to be "No": today, the New York Attorney General's office subpoenaed Comcast on its network practices.

There are other opinions, some of which are easily dismissed, like this one:

Remember when Comcast got caught blocking web content? Well, prompted by complaints about recent actions by Comcast, the FCC -- the government agency responsible for regulating the Internet -- has asked the public to comment on whether or not the companies controlling the pipes should dictate what content gets through them.

This is a complicated issue that could have a pretty simple outcome for nonprofits across the country: your content could be blocked.

Lots of us work on issues that can be viewed as controversial. If you work in sex education or reproductive health, you've probably already had to cope with technologies that make it hard for you to deliver your message to stakeholders. Take just one example: NARAL Pro-Choice America text messages were temporarily censored by a mobile provider last fall.

But it's not just sex talk that's in jeopardy. Without protection, any organization's work could be blocked at any time, for any reason. It's important that nonprofits engage in this debate and actively shape the outcome here.

You can get involved today: leave your comment with the FCC. The agency is accepting comments through February 13.  Our sector needs to be represented.

Flickr Photo: merfamWhen you ask folks what issues matter most to them in this election, technology almost never tops the list. But there are a number of technology issues being debated in the policy arena that could profoundly change our daily lives as individuals, and as nonprofits.

Net Neutrality, copyright, and Internet surveillance are just a few of the topics politicos are addressing these days. Lucky for us, CNET compiled detailed responses from a number of the presidential candidates about where they stand. Not all candidates chose to respond, but here are the answers from those who did:

• Hillary Clinton (D)
• John Edwards (D)
• John McCain (R)
• Barack Obama (D)
• Ron Paul (R)
  

Looks like the recent exploits of Comcast and Verizon have garnered the attention of Capitol Hill. Calls for Congressional hearings have been made. According to the AP:

Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said the incidents involving several companies, including Comcast Corp., Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., have raised serious concerns over the companies' "power to discriminate against content."

They want the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to investigate whether such incidents were based on legitimate business policies or unfair and anticompetitive practices and if more federal regulation is needed.

The issue of Net Neutrality has come to the fore again. A couple of weeks ago, we told you about advocacy text messages temporarily blocked by a carrier. Last week, independent tests confirmed that Comcast is blocking access to some data.

From the article:

Comcast's technology kicks in, though not consistently, when one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user.

Each PC gets a message invisible to the user that looks like it comes from the other computer, telling it to stop communicating. But neither message originated from the other computer — it comes from Comcast. If it were a telephone conversation, it would be like the operator breaking into the conversation, telling each talker in the voice of the other: "Sorry, I have to hang up. Good bye."

Great article in the New York Times today about a text messaging campaign gone awry. It's a really great piece of reporting. On the surface, it covers the decision last week by Verizon to censor a text message that NARAL Pro-Choice America wanted to send to its supporters. This week, Verizon reversed the decision, saying "It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy."

What's most interesting though, is the structure that leaves these kinds of decisions in the hands of the providers. The Times says:

...legal experts said private companies like Verizon probably have the legal right to decide which messages to carry. The laws that forbid common carriers from interfering with voice transmissions on ordinary phone lines do not apply to text messages.

Hard though it may be to take a pink site seriously, if you care about the future of internet access, you owe it to yourself to read David Weinberger’s broadside against the telecommunications industry, “Delamination Now!” David worries that “the incumbent carriers” are trying to turn the Internet into cable television, with a pricing model that will allow them to charge different amounts for different types of data or favor one content provider over another.

Network neutrality, the flipside of the current carriers’ model, would treat a bit as a bit, and nothing more. Payment to wholesale providers would be made for bandwidth used, while a new breed of ISPs could compete by offering different services: anonymity from one, outrageous connection speeds from another. David’s piece is passionate, heartfelt, and sure to provoke debate.