[Warning: The following is completely my own opinion and do not necessarilly reflect the views ofmy employer or any of my clients. Nobody put me up to it, and nobody is sponsoring me to say it. So there.]

The big cable and telco companies are working hard to start putting up toll booths along the Information Superhighway. The problem is–and this is my freely-biased opinion–that the “old guard” in Washington is so used to giving the big companies what they want that we may all lose out if we don’t investigate this issue now and let our representatives know how we feel.

Me? Keep the Internet neutral. If you have better content, or better access, you’ll have the opportunity to make money. It seems completely backwards in this day-and-age to resort to such monopolistic tactics by these big companies who whine and moan about how they’re not making any money.

What??

• Comcast Corporation (CMCSA) made just under $1Billion last year (Net) and has $40Billion in the bank. (I am a customer)
• Verizon Communications(VZ) has just as much money in the bank and made more than $7Billion last year alone. (I am also a customer)

Of course, companies who’ve made their living on the Internet are going to be affected–and I can personally see the prices of everything I do (since I do as much as I can via the Internet) going up!

Meg Whitman, CEO and President of EBay sent out the following by email today:

Right now, the telephone and cable companies in control of Internet access are trying to use their enormous political muscle to dramatically change the Internet. It might be hard to believe, but lawmakers in Washington are seriously debating whether consumers should be free to use the Internet as they want in the future.

Join me by clicking here — http://www.ebaymainstreet.com/netneutrality — to send a message to your representatives in Congress.

The phone and cable companies now control more than 95% of all Internet access. These large corporations are spending millions of dollars to promote legislation that would allow them to divide the Internet into a two-tiered system.

The top tier would be a “Pay-to-Play” high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net.

The bottom tier — the slow lane — would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information “super-highway,” the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road.

Today’s Internet is an incredible open marketplace for goods, services, information and ideas. We can’t give that up. A two-lane system will restrict innovation because start-ups and small companies — the companies that can’t afford the high fees — will be unable to succeed, and we’ll lose out on the jobs, creativity and inspiration that come with them.

The power belongs with Internet users, not the big phone and cable companies. Let’s use that power to send as many messages as possible to our elected officials in Washington. Please join me by clicking here right now to send a message to your representatives in Congress before it is too late. You can make the difference.

By clicking the link in the email (above), you can have letters like this or this sent to your local representatives on your behalf. You need an eBay account to do this (free) so they can verify that you are who you say you are.

If you don’t support Net Neutrality, no problem, but if you do, I encourage you to get involved and let your congressmen and women know how you feel — today.

Note: If you don’t have an eBay account, you can get an eBay accounthere(free)(click, then click “register”), or you can copy and paste these letters and send them to your appropriate representatives on your own. Note that the tool eBay built will look up your representatives for you and send the letters on your behalf.

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