Common Cause joined the DearAOL.com Coalition as part of our commitment to network neutrality - the principle that your Internet service provider shouldn't be able to restrict, limit or interfere with your ability to access any web content you choose or use any application you choose, including email.  We warned that AOL's CertifiedEmail scheme was a step towards the end of net neutrality, and that it would "set a dangerous precedent of allowing Internet providers to pick and choose which content you'll be able to access and how fast it will be delivered to you."

This is one of those times when I wish we hadn't been right. Tim Karr of Free Press had this to say: "Today's events prove the DearAOL.com Coalition's point entirely: Left to their own devices, AOL will always put its own self interest ahead of the public interest in a free and open Internet. AOL wants us to believe they won't hurt free email when their pay-to-send system is up and running. But if AOL is willing to censor the flow of information now to silence their critics, how could anyone trust that they will preserve the free and open internet down the road? Their days of saying `trust us' are over -- their credibility is gone."

Internet service providers are lobbying hard in Congress for the right to privatize and profiteer on our Internet. Take a stand for Internet freedom today at http://www.commoncause.org/StopCOPE.