Dear Michel :  FYI !

Cheers,

  Dear Charlie :  I have just finished reading your VIDEO VERITAS report .

While there is a lot of good content , I searched in vain for a forthright discussion of the looming issue  of protecting net neutrality .  A company like ours : Ethical Markets Media (USA & Brazil)  Certified B Corporation would never have gotten off the ground , let alone prospered , without net neutrality. We became one of the new genre  of

“ micro-multinationals” described by Don Tapscott , author of Macrowikinomics , who endorses our Green Transition Scoreboard® . Our Brazilian affiliate , Mercado Etico , based in Sao  Paulo, won an award for the best coverage of the RIO + 20 Earth Summit in 2012.   Our EthicMark® Awards for Advertising that Uplifts the Human Spirit and  our Potentials for the Future  is now in process with  its distinguished  Judges  decision for  our  8^th Annual Awards , presented at the annual SRI conference in Colorado in October ,2014..

   You can really help  pressure  Tom Wheeler ,the new chair of the FCC and former lobbyist for both cable and wireless industries, to  stop the rot which began in 2002 under Michael Powell’s disastrous  chairmanship, which re-classified ISPs as  “ information services “  under Section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act  rather than the common carriers they clearly are.  I know he is one of Aspen’s  inner circle.

This unfortunate drift  toward favoring ISPs  continued under Chair Julius Genachowski, who I see is now part of your Communications and Society  Program at the Aspen institute.  The FCC undermined its own mandate by allowing this re-interpretation .Yet the common carrier provision  under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934  still holds !

 The US based ISPs are already too powerful  and  they got their way  when Mr. Genachowski  punched two holes in the FCC’s  Open Internet Order of 2010 , which allowed Verizon’s challenge  and led to  the federal court’s throwing the issue back to  the FCC . Yet,the Supreme Court’s 2005 reaffirmed the FCC’s power to   change the classification of ISPs !   We urge FCC Chair  Wheeler  to  return to  the “common carrier “ interpretation of Title II, which is vital if we are to  achieve your objective in the VIDEO VERITAS report and  “ Building a 21^st Century Video Platform for a High-Performance Society. We share this aim , and our TV programs on “Transforming Finance “ are distributed worldwide on www.films.com and on demand at www.ethicalmarkets.tv

Ethical Markets Media (USA & Brazil)  is keenly interested in this issue , as is every other small alterative news and information platform , as well as thousands of other internet-based companies , all dependent on a fair  global information commons.  We would be happy to interview you and Mr. Genachowski on these issues .

  Charlie : you may not know that I cut my teeth in the 1960s, as an NGO organizer of Citizens for Clean Air in New York City , by getting the major TV networks and radio stations to  carry our public service  ad campaign , created pro bono for  us by the Carl Ally agency , with the crucial  backing of then FCC Chair Newton Minow ( whose daughter, Nell Minow serves on our global Advisory Board  )  and the late  publisher Norman Cousins , as well as William Bernbach of Doyle Dane Bernbach, John Kluge of Metromedia and other public-spirited  media executives.

  I look forward to  your and Mr. Genachowski’s response.  We can publish this on www.ethicalmarkets.com on our Wealth of Networks page. We are launching our own MOOC next month, THE ETHICAL MARKETS EXPLORATORIUM ,  for global citizen activists.

With warmest wishes and my thanks for all your excellent reports,

Hazel

DR. HAZEL HENDERSON, D.Sc.Hon., FRSA

President - Ethical Markets Media (USA and Brazil), a Certified B Corporation

Author, Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age

hazel(dot)henderson(at)ethicalmarkets(dot)com,  904-829-3140

EthicalMarkets.com, EthicalBiomimicryFinance.com, HazelHenderson.com

Watch our video and read the 2014 Green Transition Scoreboard® report.