FCC

A veritable who's who of Silicon Valley CEOs sent a letter to the FCC today in support of Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposed "net neutrality" rules, which are expected to be released on Thursday.

Genachowski has proposed adding two rules to the FCC's Internet Policy Principles. The rules would ensure that companies that own the infrastructure of the Internet (like ISPs) would not be able to discriminate against specific content or applications by blocking or slowing them down on their networks.

Some network operators have protested, saying they should should have some discretion in ensuring that excessive data doesn't gum up the works.

Today's letter from the CEOs says: "An open Internet fuels a competitive and efficient marketplace, where consumers make the ultimate choices about which products succeed and which fail. This allows businesses of all sizes, from the smallest startup to larger corporations, to compete, yielding maximum economic growth and opportunity."

The signatories include Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Evan Willams, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, LinkedIn founder and Executive Chairman Reid Hoffman, Flickr founder Caterina Fake, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Mozilla CEO John Lilly, TiVo President and CEO Thomas Rogers, YouTube founder Steven Chen, Digg founder Kevin Rose, Digg CEO Jay Adelson, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, and Skype CEO Josh Silverman. Also signing the letter Sony Electronics President, COO Stan Glasgow, IAC Chairman and CEO Barry Diller, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Full text of the letter, after the jump.

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Some folks are marveling at the speed with which the FCC jumped on the whole Apple/AT&T-are-blocking-Google-Voice brouhaha. After all, it was only Monday that the twittosphere erupted with reports that Apple was banning the Google Voice app from the iPhone. By Friday, the FCC had launched a formal investigation. For DC, that's almost unheard of.

The explanation for the speed might lie in who's top dog over at the FCC these days. Previous FCC heads have been career government types and DC lawyers. The current FCC chairman, however, comes from business, specifically, the tech world.

Julius Genachowski, who was sworn in as FCC chairman barely a month ago, has worked at Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp and co-founded two investment firms: Rock Creek Ventures, which has funded the likes of Away.com, Broadband.com, and SocialMedian; and LaunchBox Digital, which helps get early stage startups off the ground. Plus he's served on the board of directors of Expedia, Hotels.com, and Ticketmaster.

So this is probably a guy who knows from "wireless open access" and "handset exclusivity." Good or bad for Silicon Valley? Probably depends on where you sit.