FW: Next step on AOL: Recruit community groups

[Stetler, Dave]

Dear Cascade members,
 
If you want to keep e-mail free, please sign this open letter to AOL.

________________________________

From: Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Civic Action
[mailto:moveon-help@list.moveon.org] 
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 9:35 AM
To: Stetler, Dave
Subject: Next step on AOL: Recruit community groups


Dear AOL <http://www.dearaol.com/> 

Are you active in local community groups that depend on email to
communicate?

AOL's email tax threatens the ability of nonprofits, charities, small
businesses, and others to communicate online.   

This week, 50 organizations launched a diverse coalition to stop AOL's
email tax. We need your help to grow it to 500.

Can you help us reach out to groups in your community?
<http://www.dearaol.com/> 


Click Here <http://www.dearaol.com/> 

Dear MoveOn member,

If you are active in a local civic or community group that depends on
email to communicate with members, we need your help now-as we work to
stop AOL's email tax.

AOL's proposed email tax would give membership groups a horrible choice:
pay for every email sent to "guarantee" delivery, or face an increasing
number of legitimate emails going undelivered.

This week, a diverse coalition was formed to stop AOL's email tax. Our
50-member coalition representing 15 million people was reported on in
over 400 media outlets across the world, 100,000 people read our Open
Letter to AOL online, and 300,000 people have signed MoveOn's petition.
Our voices are being heard-now help us make them louder.  

Let's grow our coalition against AOL's email tax from 50 member
organizations to 500. Can you help recruit local organizations you are
part of? Individuals (like you) and organizations can sign our
coalition's Open Letter to AOL at:

http://www.dearaol.com/

When AOL was confronted with your criticism of its proposed pay-to-send
system, AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham told the Associated Press, "There
is no substantive news here...some disparate groups of advocates have
come together for an event reminiscent of the bar scene in the first
'Star Wars' movie." AOL doesn't yet realize regular people can make a
difference. AOL, meet MoveOn.

We know many MoveOn members are small business owners or are active in
community groups-PTAs, local environmental groups, religious groups,
charities, and others. Many groups you belong to depend on email to
communicate and would lose their effectiveness in the world AOL is
proposing-where the only ones who get reliable email service are giant
bulk-mailers who can afford to pay for every email sent.

For example, after quoting AOL's attempt to marginalize our broad
coalition with the "bar scene" comment, the Associated Press described
one of our coalition partners-a free online network for cancer patients
which cannot afford AOL's email tax, but which also cannot afford the
life-and-death consequences if their emails aren't reliably delivered to
cancer patients.

Another coalition partner is Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist. Like
MoveOn, Craigslist started small and never would have gotten off the
ground if AOL's pay-to-send policy had been in effect. The magic of the
Internet is that it is free and open to everybody-so small ideas can
become big ideas. AOL's email tax is a direct threat to the free and
open Internet, creating a two-tier system that leaves the little guy
behind.

That's why we formed a big coalition-and need it to get bigger. Already,
it includes state organizations like the North Carolina Harm Reduction
Center, Marlyland League of Conservation Voters, and Californians
Against Waste in addition to national groups such as the AFL-CIO, Gun
Owners of America, the Humane Society, the Association of Cancer Online
Resources, the Democratic National Committee, Democracy for America, the
Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project, Free Press, The Electronic
Frontier Foundation, Friends of the Earth, and others.

Please help us save the free and open Internet by growing our coalition
from 50 member organizations to 500. Please reach out to organizations
you are a part of. Individuals and organizations can sign our
coalition's Open Letter to AOL at:

http://www.dearaol.com/

Thanks for all you do.

-Eli Pariser, Noah T. Winer, Adam Green, and the MoveOn.org Civic Action
team
  Thursday, March 2nd, 2006

P.S. Please be sure to sign the open letter at www.dearaol.com
<http://www.dearaol.com/>  and if you have a website or blog, please
consider helping the cause by attaching this "Stop AOL's email tax" logo
on your site: http://www2.dearaol.com/action

________________________________


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