Facebook and Twitter have officially signed up for the Net Neutrality battle on the side of consumers demanding a free and open Internet.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Evan Williams added their signatures to a letter expected to reach Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski this morning. The letter, signed by 24 high profile Internet executives, calls on the FCC to continue efforts to “begin a process to adopt rules that preserve an open Internet.”

Both companies have not been major players in the political debate surrounding Net Neutrality until now.

The correspondence comes after two weeks of sustained attacks on Net Neutrality from several dozen Republicans on Capitol Hill and intense lobbying from telecommunications companies to drop the issue.

One signer, Echostar CEO Charlie Ergen, is no stranger to pro-consumer telecommunications legislation.  Prior to the launch of DISH Network, Ergen sold satellite dish equipment to consumers and was an active participant in the battle to pass the 1992 Cable Act, which mandated fair and open access to cable programming networks making DirecTV and DISH Network possible.  Ergen’s company owns Sling Media, manufacturer of the Slingbox, a device that streams television programming over the Internet for private use.  The Slingbox has been banned from certain wireless mobile networks, a prohibition that would end should Net Neutrality rules take hold.

Dear Chairman Genachowski:

We write to express our support for your announcement that the Federal Communications Commission will begin a process to adopt rules that preserve an open Internet. We believe a process that results in common sense baseline rules is critical to ensuring that the Internet remains a key engine of economic growth, innovation, and global competitiveness.

For most of the Internet’s history, FCC rules have ensured that consumers have been able to choose the content and services they want over their Internet connections. Entrepreneurs, technologists, and venture capitalists have previously been able to develop new online products and services with the guarantee of neutral, nondiscriminatory access by users, which has fueled an unprecedented era of economic growth and creativity. Existing businesses have been able to leverage the power of the Internet to develop innovative product lines, reach new consumers, and create new ways of doing business.

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.

America’s leadership in the technology space has been due, in large part, to the open Internet. We applaud your leadership in initiating a process to develop rules to ensure that the qualities that have made the Internet so successful are protected.

Sincerely,

Jeff Bezos – Amazon.com
James F. Geiger – Cbeyond
Craig Newmark – Craigslist
Jay Adelson – Digg
Kevin Rose – Digg
John Donahoe – eBay
Charles E. Ergen – Echostar Corporation
Erik Blachford – Expedia
Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook
Caterina Fake – Flickr
Eric Schmidt – Google
Barry Diller – IAC
Reid Hoffman – Linkedin
Scott Heiferman – Meetup
John Lilly – Mozilla
David Ulevitch – OpenDNS
Josh Silverman –  Skype
Stan Glasgow – Sony Electronics
Thomas S. Rogers – TiVo
Evan Williams – Twitter
Gilles BianRosa – Vuze
Carl J. Grivner – XO Communications
Steve Chen – YouTube
Mark Pincus – Zynga