Be Careful for What You Ask.

photo: "Keep A Child Alive - First in line for an iPhone at Apple Store Soho", by Johnny Vulkan

Do you want the new iPhone?

If so, you're in for a disappointment. If not, you should be worried anyway, because this is mobile phone shackling, folks.

Here are a few reasons for concern:

Apple just released the new iPhone with a promise that it will be "the Internet in your pocket." If only.

The iPhone's groundbreaking technology has been hijacked by AT&T. The telephone giant has struck an exclusive agreement that ties the hands of all iPhone users, restricts their Internet use and prohibits access to any other network.

That's why Free Press has launched a new campaign to free the iPhone and other "smart" phones like it from attempts to cripple their best features, block full access to the Internet and stick customers with astronomical bills. Please join us:

Free My Phone and Open the Wireless Internet

FreeMyPhone is fighting for affordable new phones that have full access to the Internet. This is vital because hand-held wireless devices are becoming the first point of Internet access for tens of millions of Americans.

These "exclusive deals" remind me of the days when AT&T held a monopoly over all phone communications. Consumers could only use one phone, on one network, at rates set by one company. No innovations could take place without AT&T's permission. When federal rules forced AT&T to open its network, an explosion of innovation occurred with new fax machines, Internet modems and answering machines.

Today, the FreeMyPhone campaign seeks to open up the wireless market in the same way:

photo: "iPhone 1G", by David "Shapeshift" on flickr visit the shapeshift network

Free My Phone: No More Gatekeepers

The future of the Internet is wireless and mobile. Eighty-seven percent of Americans have mobile phones. Increasingly, these phones are people's only gateway to the Internet.

Yet as more phones become Internet-enabled, more users are tied to carriers that don't actually deliver an open Internet. This is important...

• If you care about universal Internet access and closing the digital divide.
• If you care about Net Neutrality and protecting an open wireless Internet.
• If you care about innovation and fostering new online tools and economic opportunity.
• If you care about competition and offering more affordable choices for everyone.

Sign our petition to free your phone and demand the freedom to use new phones on wireless networks that offer true high-speed Internet and real consumer choice.

Thank you,
Josh Levy
Online Campaign Manager
Free Press Action Fund
www.freepress.net

1. Join us on Facebook, follow FreeMyPhone on Twitter, or tell your friends to support FreeMyPhone. Be sure to tweet about FreeMyPhone using the #freemyphone hashtag.

2. Help the Free Press Action Fund continue to fight for wireless freedom.

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a DIFFERENCE!

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