Point-of-View
- eBay Inc. provides a global Internet marketplace. Together with PayPal, we are enabling ecommerce for small businesses everywhere. Because the success of our companies is completely dependent on the success of our community of users, including small businesses, we take public policy positions that are important to that community.
- eBay Inc. supports Net Neutrality legislation that will prohibit phone and cable companies from replacing the robust open Internet with "Pay to Play" private networks that will force out and discriminate against content and service providers that refuse to pay new tolls.
- Consumers, non-profits and businesses already pay for access to the Internet. Broadband providers should not be permitted to "double dip" by charging consumers twice for high-speed Internet access.
Background
- The Internet has always been governed by a regulatory regime based on principles of openness and non-discrimination. This approach has been integral to making the Internet the home to the most innovative and exciting new businesses and ideas., Internet companies have spent billions on new content and services that have transformed American life. This investment has fueled the American economy.
- Large cable and telecommunications companies that own broadband networks in the U.S. are proposing to replace the open Internet with a system where the large providers can pick and choose which websites will operate on their new "closed" networks. In this world, special access charges will be levied on Internet content providers as well as consumers.
- Content and services are what drive broadband Internet access adoption. Consumers who subscribe to broadband do so primarily in order to be able to use these innovative new services and to get access to interesting and information-rich content. Allowing the duopoly of cable companies and telecommunications companies to make high-speed Internet access a "toll road" will slow the adoption of broadband, limit Americans' access to important information and tools, and damage the leading role that the United States plays in technological innovation.
Impact
Double-Charging Consumers - Consumers already pay for access to the Internet, but Network Operators now propose to sneak hidden bandwidth charges into the content that consumers access online. Double-charging will raise consumer costs and create an inefficient, non-transparent market for high-speed access.
Fragmenting the Market - The Internet is a global network based on the principle of openness, potentially connecting everyone with everyone. As we have seen with eBay and PayPal, the Internet has the power to create communities on a scale never seen before. Replacing the Internet with technologically advanced but closed "private networks" will end the Internet as we know it and reduce the ability of Internet users to reach a global market. Small business sellers rely on that global community and could be hardest hit by new fees and tiered services that impede existing and potential customers from accessing their sites.
Please Take Action!
We urge you to support legislation to protect the Internet and ensure that consumers are:
- free to use the open Internet as they have in the past;
- not subject to discrimination by network operators pushing affiliated content and services;
- not required to pay twice for bandwidth (directly or indirectly) through hidden bandwidth fees.
