Open MIC Signs Public Interest Letter to FCC Urging Action on Set-Top Boxes, Privacy, and Zero Rating

Open MIC joined 76 public interest organizations in signing on to a letter to the Chairman and Commissioners of the FCC urging the agency to take action on three important issues: the set-top box rulemaking, the broadband privacy rulemaking, and the zero rating investigation. Public interest organizations view action on these issues as necessary to make internet, cable, and satellite services more affordable and open, and to preserve internet users’ privacy. 

The text of the letter below:

Dear Chairman Wheeler and Commissioners:

The FCC has several big opportunities now to protect consumers in the digital age. Among them are two pending proceedings on this month’s agenda and one informal investigation that the FCC must act on as soon as possible: the set-top box rulemaking, the broadband privacy rulemaking, and the zero rating investigation. Each of these issues has been discussed by policymakers for years, if not decades. Further delay would put internet users’ privacy in jeopardy and undermine longstanding efforts to make internet, cable and satellite services more affordable and open.

This Commission has made bold and historic moves to dismantle technological barriers to free and unfettered speech, making tools for generating content more accessible, and networks for sharing and reading more egalitarian. Chief among this Commission’s accomplishments was the historic Open Internet Order, which set in place protections to help ensure that the world’s most powerful platform for democratic speech and association does not become an oligarchy of closely curated and censored speech.

But there is still much left to do. The below-signed 76 groups and the American public therefore call on you to liberate consumers from the set-top box monopoly, helping lower prices and creating more choice for consumers and opportunities for small and independent programmers eager to grow their audience; to promulgate rules that foster trust in the integrity of broadband privacy so that consumers will readily use the internet, without self-censoring, for learning, expression, and association; and to prohibit abusive data caps and zero rating plans that violate net neutrality.

Each day that passes without marking progress on these important issues is another day of missed opportunities. We thank you for your continuing commitment to protecting consumers and promoting free and open access to critical communications networks and technologies. We urge you to move forward without delay on these important issues.

Sincerely,

18MillionRising.org

Access Fort Wayne

Access Humboldt

Access Now

Access Sonoma Broadband

AccessVision

Akaku Maui Community Media

Alliance for Community Media

Alternate ROOTS

Appalshop, Inc.

Arts & Democracy

Benton Foundation

Black Education Network

Broadband Alliance of Mendocino

County

California Center for Rural Policy

Campaign for a Commercial-Free

Childhood

Center for Digital Democracy

Center for Media Justice

Center for Rural Strategies

Chicago Consumer Coalition

Color Of Change

Common Cause

Consumer Federation of California

Consumer Watchdog

Consumers Union

Courage Campaign

CTV Channel Six - St. Clair

Daily Kos

Demand Progress

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Fight for the Future

Free Press

FREE! Families Rally for Emancipation

and Empowerment

Generation Justice

Global Action Project

Ho'ike Kauai Community Television

Human Rights Defense Center

Image Marketing

Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de

California

Line Break Media

Martinez Street Women’s Center

Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition

May First/People Link

Media Action Center

Media Alliance

Media Council Hawaii

Media Mobilizing Project

Michigan Chapter ACM

MomsRising

National Association of Consumer

Advocates

National Consumer Law Center, on

behalf of its low-income clients

National Digital Inclusion Alliance

National Hispanic Media Coalition

(NHMC)

Native Public Media

New America’s Open Technology

Institute

Open Access Connections

Open MIC (Open Media and

Information Companies Initiative)

OpenMedia

OVEC (Ohio Valley Environmental

Coalition)

Oxford Community Television

PhillyCAM

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

Progressive Technology Project

3

Public Citizen

Public Knowledge

Public Media Network

The Greenlining Institute

The People’s Press Project

The Utility Reform Network (TURN)

Tribal Digital Village Network (TDVNet)

U.S. PIRG

Urbana-Champaign Independent Media

Center

WACA TV

Working Films

X-Lab