Vint Cerf declares for Obama over net neutrality

Reminds US citizens to turn up on polling day

Posted in Telecoms, 16th October 2008 11:11 GMT

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Vint Cerf has declared for Obama in the US Presidential race, after carefully considering the issues – you know, war, global and domestic poverty – and deciding that what the world needs now is network neutrality.

To drive home the point, Cerf posted his manifesto on YouTube – thus reaping the twin benefits of getting his message in front of the kids and ensuring more traffic for Google, the firm for which he is chief internet evangelist.

In the vid, Cerf gives a potted explanation of the net neutrality debate, declaring: “It's vital to innovation. Companies like Google, and Yahoo, and eBay, and Amazon, and Skype, and so on, got their start without having to get permission from any ISP or any broadband provider to offer services.”

Thankfully, he continues: “I'm pleased to say that in the upcoming presidential elections, the two candidates have rather different views of this particular matter.”

Yes, thank God they’re not matching clones being sockpuppeted by big business this time.

“Senator Obama in particular sees things the way I do,” says Cerf, “which is that the Net should remain open, fully accessible and providing access on a nondiscriminatory basis to people who want to offer new services on the network."

And who knows, maybe he'll do some other stuff to save the economy/America/world like spreading the wealth around more evenly and stopping hosing money into Iraq.

Whatever your politics, Cerf’s stump speech is part of the ScienceBlogs Avoteforscience YouTube effort, and Vint goes on to encourage his viewers - whoever they are - to register to vote.

Then, perhaps mindful of the fact that not all his listeners will necessarily be of a scientific bent, he reminds them that once they’ve done this, they still need to actually turn up on the day. ®

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