Net Neutrality 6-06-2006

Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Net Neutrality Astroturf Commenting Harms..The Telcos

For several weeks now, I’ve been writing about what appears to be a coordinated group of possibly paid blog commenters who roam the web looking for blog items on net neutrality. (See here and here.) These commenters almost always write in generalities and their comments are always negative of net neutrality regulations.

Mark Glaser at PBS’ MediaShift blog has done a superb job of following up on this matter and has an excellent analysis of the net neutrality astroturf-sock-puppet-commenting brouhaha. If you’re a telco (and I assume the pack of commenters were hired by telcos and not cable operators, but I could be very wrong…it just seems such a telco-ish thing to do somehow), make sure you read Glaser’s write-up of his investigation.

Glaser contacted a known telco PR firm called Issue Dynamics Inc. to find out if they’re behind the robotic anti-net neutrality comments. IDI’s assistant vice president Kevin Reid answered Glaser’s email with an emphatic no — in fact (and here’s the lesson), Reid thinks a stunt like this ultimately hurts the telcos’ cause.

Why? Because now no one will take at face value any blog comments that deride net neutrality, however sincere the commenters may be. . . .

Internet Freedom Update

A couple of updates on the net neutrality fight. The tech companies are wading into the fight, gingerly (with eBay as the most effective). I’m hearing, though I can’t confirm, that the telcos are spending between ten and fifty million dollars on this fight. Their ads are splashed all over local TV in DC, and in other areas of the country, though it’s hard to track because the money is channeled through front groups like Hands off the Internet and TV4US (along with indirect costs, such as money to think tanks).

This money has bought a lot of support in the House, though less in the Senate. The overall telecom reform bill that’s passing is called the COPE Act, and that includes the evisceration of net neutrality. We always thought that it would go through the House; what’s surprising is how long it’s taken.

We’ve set up this fight in the House so that the Senate takes the issue seriously. Now we’re in the last throes of the House fight. . . .

Does The Power Company Do It?

If not, then why should the telco cartel? youtube video

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE