Comcast Paid Civil Rights Groups To Support Killing Broadband Privacy Rules
from the with-friends-like-these... dept
For years, one of the greasier lobbying and PR tactics by the telecom industry has been the use of minority groups to parrot awful policy positions. Historically, such groups are happy to take financing from a company like Comcast, in exchange for repeating whatever talking point memos are thrust in their general direction, even if the policy being supported may dramatically hurt their constituents. This strategy has played a starring role in supporting anti-consumer mega-mergers, killing attempts to make the cable box market more competitive, and efforts to eliminate net neutrality.
The goal is to provide an artificial wave of "support" for bad policies, used to then justify bad policy votes. And despite this being something the press has highlighted for the better part of several decades, the practice continues to work wonders. Hell, pretending to serve minority communities while effectively undermining them with bad internet policy is part of the reason Comcast now calls top lobbyist David Cohen the company's Chief Diversity Officer (something the folks at Comcast hate when I point it out, by the way).
Last week, we noted how Congress voted to kill relatively modest but necessary FCC privacy protections. You'd be hard pressed to find a single, financially-objective group or person that supports such a move. Even Donald Trump's most obnoxious supporters were relatively disgusted by the vote. Yet The Intercept notes that groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens and the OCA (Asian Pacific American Advocates) breathlessly urged the FCC to kill the rules, arguing that snoopvertising and data collection would be a great boon to low income families:
"The League of United Latin American Citizens and OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates, two self-described civil rights organizations, told the FCC that “many consumers, especially households with limited incomes, appreciate receiving relevant advertising that is keyed to their interests and provides them with discounts on the products and services they use."
Of course, folks like Senator Ted Cruz then used this entirely-farmed support to insist there were "strenuous objections from throughout the internet community" at the creation of the rules, which simply wasn't true. Most people understood that the rules were a direct response to some reckless and irresponsible privacy practices at major ISPs -- ranging from charging consumers more to keep their data private, or using customer credit data to provide even worse customer support than they usually do. Yes, what consumer (minority or otherwise) doesn't want to pay significantly more money for absolutely no coherent reason?
It took only a little bit of digging for The Intercept to highlight what the real motivation for this support of anti-consumer policies was:
"OCA has long relied on telecom industry cash. Verizon and Comcast are listed as business advisory council members to OCA, and provide funding along with “corporate guidance to the organization.” Last year, both companies sponsored the OCA annual gala.
AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and Verizon serve as part of the LULAC “corporate alliance,” providing “advice and assistance” to the group. Comcast gave $240,000 to LULAC between 2004 and 2012.
When a reporter asks these groups why they're supporting internet policies that run in stark contrast to their constituents, you'll usually be met with either breathless indignance at the idea that these groups are being used as marionettes, or no comment whatsoever (which was the case in the Intercept's latest report). This kind of co-opting still somehow doesn't get much attention in the technology press or policy circles, so it continues to work wonders. And it will continue to work wonders as the administration shifts its gaze from gutting privacy protections to killing net neutrality.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: broadband, civil rights groups, lobbying, privacy, sock puppets
Companies: comcast, lulac, oca
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Civil Rights Groups...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Civil Rights Groups...
http://stopthecap.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/att_grant.jpg
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Civil Rights Groups...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Civil Rights Groups...
The very creation of a political party is done to usurp the will of its voters under the guise to providing a stronger group. Voters do NOT control their candidates... the Party does. Sure the parties will do things to make voters feel "included" but there is a constant force working against the will of the voters at every turn.
If you voted for R or D, then you are likely placing a party before yourself or your own countrymen, and that will never end well!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Civil Rights Groups...
Nice non-answer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Civil Rights Groups...
... and probably the MAGA thing too.
Not entirely sure what this even means anymore, care to expound upon this much used and yet misunderstood saying?
When some say this, I think they want to turn back the clock to maybe the 1800's, others I think want it even further - before america was a country. Yeah. lets make america not even a country anymore ... makes total sense, not.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Civil Rights Groups...
Anarchists DO know that other countries are unlikely to follow suit, right?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So, what they're claiming here is that people like ads? That's the benefit? That they'll get ads? Not the magical unicorn that ought to be lower prices because the company will be making more off of our data, but ads?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Small Addition
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
No - what they're claiming here is that people like relevant ads better than they like irrelevant ones. The alleged benefit is that the ads people see will be more frequently useful than they otherwise would, and therefore will waste less of the people's time and bandwidth than would otherwise be the case.
This is still a dubious proposition, but it's not quite as obviously ludicrous.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Representing the minority community
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Representing the minority community
72% pro-privacy, 15% against, rest "not sure"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Representing the minority community
but their own privacy is a completely different story.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Representing the minority community
72% po-privacy, 15% against, rest waiting for the check to clear
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Or maybe... classify all political or social movement groups as Terrorist Cells.
If you want someone to represent you in government... how about we just make everyone go and learn about them?
I wonder if we would have even had a clinton, bush, obama, or trump if people had only their opinions of each candidate to vote on instead of their R or D status.
of course we would need to change the election process from something else, but I actually would like to take the vote for president out of the hands of the citizens. It creates the Kingship Vice problem, where citizens ignore all other political forces and begin to focus on a single monolithic all powerful figure head and vote for which dictator dictates to them.
the only thing Citizens should be allowed to vote for in the Central government is the house and senate... nothing else. If we do that, people will start to look at their congress critters a lot more for getting change in government. Instead people are more than willing to allow the Executive branch to usurp authority because of the party system we have created.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Based upon your post my guess is no, or possibly you advocate for a completely different type of government.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Grassroots donors should complain
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Grassroots donors should complain
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Is this going to be like the credit card companies' "opt outs", where you have to re-do it over and over and over again every year until finally at some point you just forget one year and that's it, your info is on their list? I suspect it will be.
At any rate: everybody please go out and download Adblock or Ublock, plus Ghostery and/or SuperAntiSpyware, or any one of the many other fine aps out there that suppress advertising and corrals cookies. Or use a broswer with ad-blocking combined. I only occasionally see ads, but they seem to disappear next time I look, I assume when the app's list gets updated. I don't even see Youtube ads. These things work and work well and will take a bite out of the reason they're doing this: advertising profits.
Must go investigate a good VPN now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
yEARS AND YEARS..
They do many things..and this is just a side line.
There is a system to send LETTERS to representatives and congress, in the MILLIONS.. but HOW can this have an affect if the Addresses are not REAL?? THEY ARE.. They may even have your NAME on them./.
There is a service to make Phone calls..
With all this hidden identity WHAT CANT BE DONE??
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What is OCA? It doesn't appear to be a non-profit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: What is OCA? ** correction **
http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/237/237250499/237250499_201512_990.pdf
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Interesting item from OCA's 990
As far as I can tell, OCA spends most of its outgoings on a national convention.
The CEO of OCA is Kenneth Lee and the 990 reveals that there was a transaction (or transactions) with an amount of "890,489" with "KLL Investments LLC" which is 100% owned by Kenneth Lee and his wife.
I also noticed that in question 2 of Part IV, the "Yes" box was ticked for the question "Is the organization required to complete Schedule B, Schedule of Contributors", but Schedule B is not present in the PDF file.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Misnomer
[ link to this | view in chronology ]