Vint Cerf, Tim Berners Lee, and 19 other technologists pen letter asking FCC to save net
0Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, and 19 other technologists pen letter asking FCC to save net neutrality.
Almost two-dozen high-profile technologists have penned an open letter requesting that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) cancel an upcoming vote to repeal existing net neutrality rules.
December 14 could prove to be a key day for internet freedom in the U.S., after FCC Chairman Ajit Pai scheduled a vote that he hopes will remove regulations that currently prevent telecommunication companies from creating a tiered internet through treating various kinds of online content differently. Many claim that the order, dubbed somewhat dubiously as the “Restoring Internet Freedom Order,” would reverse over a decade of work trying to protect internet users.
Now, as a last-ditch attempt to stave off changes to existing net neutrality regulation, 21 renowned internet pioneers and engineers have written to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, as well as the House Energy Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, asking them to “urge FCC Chairman Pai to cancel the FCC’s vote.”
Among the tech luminaries putting their names to the letter are Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist who created the World Wide Web; Vint Cerf, one of the so-called “fathers” of the internet, and latterly an internet evangelist at Google; and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak.