Designing With Homestead

Internet Blacklist Legislation – Stop it in it’s tracks

November 17, 2011 at 12:19 pm Leave a comment

If you haven’t been reading the news of late you probably haven’t heard about the proposed bill that Congress is working on. Called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and the Protect IP Act. These bills, if passed, would the threaten the security, sanctity, and privacy of the Internet as we know it.

Although reaction on the internet has been somewhat slow, it appears that resistance is picking up steam as evidenced by posts on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Well-known web companies have banded together and drafted a letter to Congress in response to SOPA.  The letter signed by these companies  states in part, “Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of web sites.“  The following companies have signed the letter:

Google
Facebook
Twitter
AOL
eBay
LinkedIn
Yahoo
Zynga
Mozilla

Mozilla has a page showing their dissatisfaction of the intended legislation. Read Google’s response on its Public Policy Blog.

There isn’t room here for complacency or sticking our heads in the sand leaving it up to ‘the other guy’ to deal with. If you value the freedom of the Internet take a stand NOW.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation has set up a page where you can easily send a letter to your members of Congress requesting they oppose the bills. It only takes a couple of minutes and could mean the difference between a free Internet and one that is censored.

Entry filed under: Web news and views. Tags: Internet blacklist, SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act.