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A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Would Google-Verizon Deal Hurt Innovation and Independent Voices?

WASHINGTON

SUSAN CRAWFORD
Available for a limited number of interviews, Crawford is former
special assistant to the president for science, technology, and
innovation policy (2009). She now teaches at the Cardozo Law School and
is a visiting researcher at Princeton University's Center for
Information Technology Policy. She is quoted in Time Magazine: "It's the
next Google in a garage in Palo Alto that will be hurt by this [the
planned Google-Verizon deal]. ... This allows for the cable-ization of
an Internet access provider."
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LAURA FLANDERS
Flanders is founder and host of GRITtv, a independent daily program
distributed via the internet and on Free Speech TV (Dish Network and
DirecTV.) She said today: "We learned years ago that separate's not
equal. While Google/Verizon present their deal as a re-commitment to
equal treatment, in fact, the purported equality would exist only in a
fast expiring hard-wired universe. An enormous opt-out would permit
money to control traffic in the wireless Internet world. It's tantamount
to telling independent producers we are free to communicate and do
business -- but only by tin-can on a mobile planet."
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JACK WALSH
Walsh is co-director of the National Alliance for Media Arts and
Culture. He said today: "The most crucial thing is that the Internet
remain free and open. The FCC should see broadband as part of
telecommunications policy; there needs to be a regulatory body to ensure
that certain places on the Internet do not get preferential treatment
so many voices can be heard. In NAMAC's recently completed national
poll, over 400 public media organizations told us that the web is now
their number one way of reaching the public."
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A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.