Open MIC Announces Significant Shareholder Votes on Internet Privacy and Freedom of Speech

Investors in two major U.S. Internet Service Providers – CenturyTel, Inc. and EarthLink, Inc. – voted in substantial numbers in favor of a first-time shareholder resolution that highlighted the importance of Internet management practices and their impact on Internet privacy and freedom of expression. The resolutions, which were filed and voted on for the first time this year, attracted 30.49% of the vote at CenturyTel and 9.25% at EarthLink. Taken together, the votes mean that investors controlling stock worth more than $900 million voted in favor of the resolutions at the two companies.

“This is the kind of vote that grabs the attention of corporate management.” said Jonas Kron, Senior Social Research Analyst at Trillium Asset Management Corporation, which filed the resolution at CenturyTel. “When almost one out of three shareholders expresses this kind of concern, it’s time for the Board to re-examine how it will attend to the policy challenges, and opportunities, it faces. We hope CenturyTel will take this occasion to become a leader on privacy and freedom of speech.”

To read more please visit Open MIC.

RiskMetrics calls Open MIC Internet Project “biggest new campaign in the human rights arena for the 2009 U.S. proxy season.”

Risk Metrics Group (RMG), the nation’s largest and most influential proxy advisory firm, provides research to some of the world’s largest and most important financial institutions about the environmental and social issues shareholders raise in proxy statements. It’s guidance to large pension funds often determines the fate of shareholder proposals filed by Trillium Asset Management and our fellow shareholder activists. We were, therefore, very pleased when RMG recently wrote a lengthy piece on the Open MIC shareholder initiative describing it as the “biggest new campaign in the human rights arena for the 2009 U.S. proxy season.” The story discusses the importance of Internet service provider (ISP) network management practices to privacy and freedom of speech and includes comments from our colleague Pat Doherty, director of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the New York City Comptroller’s Office and a lead member along with Trillium Asset Management of the Open MIC effort this year. He told RMG, “This is a long-term campaign and serious policy issue for business and society as well, in our country and others.” He went on to say that ISP filtering “has to be watched very closely.” You can read the full story here.