I was asked if I wanted to help The Nation identify the blogosphere's influentials that could help them in one of their current campaigs, the first thought that popped into my head was, "here we go again, another one of those blogger phone calls". Yet, when I heard the name "TimeWarner" as one of the main antagonists, I knew I had to take on this project.
Earlier this year, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) rejected a postal rate increase plan offered by the U.S. Postal Service. Instead of implementing a plan that would spread equitably the rate hikes across all bulk mail clients, they opted to implement a modified version submitted by and partial to media giant Time-Warner Inc.
The new postal increase drafted by TimeWarner-AOL and approved by the PRC favors large bulk mail users like the magazine publishing divisions of TimeWarner-AOL by increasing the rate of small independent publishers by as much as 20%. Just to put things into perspective, for a publication like The Nation, this translates into paying $500,000 extra in postage yearly and in perpetuity (or until the next postal increase comes along).
As Teresa Stark put it in Disseminate Information, Protect Democracy, "While it is understandable that Time Warner would relish the idea of making it more difficult for new competitors, there is no reason to think that it is in the interest of the American people or the market economy.
Ironically, about two years ago a coalition of organizations and netactivists created DearAOL.com after the media giant tried to impose an email “stamp†system for bulk emailers like MoveOn.org or bloggers with weekly newsletters produced by blogs like YearlyKos, BradBlog or Afronetizen. Yes, they actually tried to play post office with AOL's email service.
And it was thinking about this bit of irony that it hit me : TimeWarner has been one of the biggest enemies of the free internet (aka, net neutrality) not just so they can be free to charge whatever they want for all aspects of publishing, privacy, creativity and freedom on the internet. It's part of a larger business vision in which all publishing, recording and broadcasting in the United States is control by a handful of large (and therefore manageable) media conglomerates.
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