I don't usually bring up issues of politics on our forums but this is something EVERYONE (ALL political affiliations) needs to at very least be aware of. This is one of those issues that will hit everyone in the face with a "When did THAT happen???" realization.

Late Monday, a majority of the FCC's commissioners indicated that they're going to vote with Chairman Julius Genachowski for a toothless Net Neutrality rule. The problem is that the FCC's current rules on Net Neutrality continue to leave the door wide open for corporations to dictate which services/information receive "priority" treatment & bandwidth. In other words; a small business like WorldWorksGames (or any other indie publisher, service, info source) can be throttled down into a lower tier of bandwidth, slowed or even blocked from the open internet completely unless said services can pay a premium to stay within priority or premium channels.

Its worse than that though; if a service provider has a particular political slant (Right OR left) they can simply deny access to those information streams entirely without any consequences. Say goodbye to the open and balanced internet you once knew. Say hello to Big Brother 2011.

The negative trickle down has huge consequences to both the Billions made by small online businesses each year and the free exchange of all forms of online information. Corporations will dictate what you view online and only the rich and powerful will receive even-handed treatment. This issue needs strong government intervention to prevent the most wealthy from dictating what the majority of us can or can't do, can or can't see.

Write your congressman, take advantage of the various Internet Neutrality organizations out there: http://act2.freepress.net/letter/two_million/ or at the very least discuss this issue with family, friends and associates. This is an important issue.

I cant agree more...This has the potential to completely stifle freedom and open access to the internet, which will have very serious consequences for the US...both commercially and politically.
If you love Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Choice, and Freedom of Information...you MUST do what you can do to promote true net neutrality.

Denny, in this case I would say it is pretty important to any WWG purchaser. We don't want to lose access to WWG becuase of stupid politics.

Yeah I've been participating in the free press net neutrality for over a year now. The FCC decision was a huge let down, hardly surprising though.

I have been following this for some time as well. I have had the looming feeling of big change the entire time. I really hope that the internet is not actually ruined. Turning the internet into something akin to cable television would be a travesty.

Normally I'm all about free market and competition, but in this case my usual argument doesn't apply - you can't have free competition in a given area when one of the competitors owns the only transmission medium. I think this is one of the cases where a government control may be the only way to ensure fair competition.

Letter sent.

@Heckbringer: There's the rub. Zero gov't involvement means zero gov't. What we have to find is someplace between 1984 and Grey (here if you're interested => http://www.podiobooks.com/title/grey ). I think the argument among the (semi)informed is not about which end we should be aiming for, just about which way we should lean, and how far. It's not a clean analogy, I know-- the capitalists will always be getting their chocolate in the socialists' peanut butter and vice versa. Ultimately this is necessary, I think.

The problem is always where does the line line.

You want the government to regulate but not stifle.
That's a fine line to walk.

In this case, we haven't seen the text of what the FCC will list as unreasonable yet. Until we see the actual text, I don't know that we can jump to conclusions yet.

But I have to agree with the general thought here. This needs to be watched closely once the text is published.

I brought up the topic of Net Neutrality tonight when the discussion turned political. Most seem to be of the thought that net neutrality is good and disbelieve the possibility of "the people" letting it go so easily. They were doubtful of any eminent change.

Then the conversation turned to much more heated debates on current media-hyped topics that I won't repeat here as to keep this one topic.

Fair enough. Sorry if I seemed to be pointing a finger at you. I just clicked the link and got riled up.

I grant you this one is also from a pro net neutrality site, but it does provide a more comprehensive explanation of the situation including some republican statements.

http://www.internetfreedomcoalition.com/?p=1908