Full Throttle: The Only Way to Experience the Internet

Pop quiz, hotshots: On a scale of one to ten, how important is the Internet to your organization's ability to meet its mission? 

It's pretty high up there, right? A nine? A ten? In less than one generation, the Internet has gone from sci-fi to central to our daily lives. As nonprofits, we rely on the Internet to find and communicate information and build relationships with our supporters. 

Millions of emails. Millions of page views. Millions of Twitter updates. Not to be overly dramatic, but they are all at risk.

On April 6, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals overrode an FCC ruling that limited the ability of Internet providers to censor the delivery of information on their networks. According to the ruling, Comcast, Verizon and other providers can decide what content can be delivered over their networks, and at what speed, for any reason. That means that if your Internet provider disagrees with your stance, they could simply refuse to carry your traffic.  

Think we're being paranoid? Think again. It already happened to NARAL ProChoice America.

How did we get to this place? In 2007, Comcast was outed for slowing down traffic to Bit Torrent, a popular file sharing site. The practice of slowing down or speeding up traffic actually has a name -- "throttling" -- and the major Internet providers contend that they should have the right to do it whenever they want, for whatever reason they want.  

How do we protect our Internet and keep from being throttled ouselves? Start by listening in on our April Ask the Expert call, where we'll explore the issue and what to do about it in more detail.

You should also check out SavetheInternet to learn more and take action today. But do get involved. This is a cause we all need to fight for, so we can keep fighting for our causes.