Why Citizen Movements Are Citizen Driven

WHY CITIZEN MOVEMENTS ARE CITIZEN DRIVEN
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Harold Feld, Media Access Project]
[Commentary] Microsoft is one of the biggest supporters of Net Neutrality and a member of the It's Our Net coalition. But Microsoft has a temporary hiatus from the coalition after the groups asked the FCC to make Net Neutrality a condition of the AT&T-BellSouth merger. Microsoft has a corporate policy against opposing other people’s mergers -- particularly mergers involving large potential customers. This is why “you can't outsource citizenship.” It is nice to have big companies like Microsoft on the side of public interest advocates, but, at the end of the day, a corporation does what is in the corporation's best interests. That’s not a criticism. It’s a fact of life. Feld concludes: "If you expect companies to save your bacon and defend your rights, think again. And if you expect the network neutrality movement to vanish if the telcos and tech companies manage to cut some kind of deal, think again. What has put Network Neutrality on the policy map has been people getting together and reminding their elected representatives that they work for us. And if we are going to win this fight in the long hall, we need to remember that."
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/703