Target 9.c: Universal, affordable internet access
Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
The ITU reports that 2.2 billion people worldwide were offline in 2025 and that only 23 percent of people in low-income countries use the internet. It also finds internet access still unaffordable in around 60 percent of low- and middle-income countries. Network build-out and pricing are decided by listed telecom operators, tower companies and device makers. Corporate conduct is therefore a necessary input alongside spectrum and universal-service policy set by governments. Telecom influence over access rules is a documented issue. In 2011 SEC staff allowed AT&T, Comcast and Verizon to exclude shareholder proposals on net neutrality. Senators Franken and Wyden objected that shareholders should be able to vote on the issue. That episode shows both an attempted shareholder lever and the limits placed on it. Owners supply a necessary input, and governments must also act on spectrum and universal-service policy.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Global number of Internet users increases, but disparities deepen key digital divides (Facts and Figures 2025), International Telecommunication Union, 2025-11-17
- Sens. Franken, Wyden to SEC: You're Wrong to Tell Telecom Shareholders that Net Neutrality Not a "Significant Policy Issue", Office of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, 2011-03-10
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Organized shareholder proposals at AT&T and Verizon asking the companies to commit to open internet principles and to report on the business risks of opposing them, arguing that minority and low-income Americans disproportionately depend on mobile access.
Filed the network neutrality proposal at AT&T on behalf of individual holders, the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and defeated the company's attempt to exclude it at the SEC.
2 campaigns on record
Report on the business risks created by the company's lawsuit against the FCC and its other actions opposing net neutrality.
Result: 26.4 percent
Report on the business risks created by the company's opposition to open internet principles.
Result: 24.1 percent
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.