AT&T Pretends To Love Net Neutrality, Joins Tomorrow's Protest With A Straight Face

from the Dracula-supports-blood-donors'-rights dept

You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger enemy of net neutrality than the fine folks at AT&T. The company has a history of all manner of anti-competitive assaults on the open and competitive internet, from blocking customer access to Apple FaceTime unless users subscribed to more expensive plans, to exempting its own content from arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps while penalizing streaming competitors. AT&T also played a starring role in ensuring the FCC's 2010 net neutrality rules were flimsy garbage, and sued to overturn the agency's tougher, 2015 rules.

So it's with a combination of amusement and awe to see the company's top lobbying and policy head, Bob Quinn, pen a missive over at the AT&T website proudly proclaiming the company will be joining tomorrow's "day of action protest" in support of keeping the existing rules intact. According to Quinn, the company still opposes the FCC's popular 2015 consumer protections, but wanted to participate in the protest because that's just how much the sweethearts at AT&T adore the open internet:

"Tomorrow, AT&T will join the “Day of Action” for preserving and advancing an open internet. This may seem like an anomaly to many people who might question why AT&T is joining with those who have differing viewpoints on how to ensure an open and free internet. But that’s exactly the point – we all agree that an open internet is critical for ensuring freedom of expression and a free flow of ideas and commerce in the United States and around the world. We agree that no company should be allowed to block content or throttle the download speeds of content in a discriminatory manner. So, we are joining this effort because it’s consistent with AT&T’s proud history of championing our customers’ right to an open internet and access to the internet content, applications and devices of their choosing.

That is an incredible, astounding line of bullshit.

So one, some of you might recall that the net neutrality debate began in earnest when former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre said in 2005 that he "wasn't going to let Google ride his pipes for free." What Whitacre was proposing was using a lack of broadband competition to force companies to pay an arbitrary and duplicative toll to so much as touch the AT&T network. Ed thought he was being pretty clever in forcing other companies to pay for network upgrades, but his comments are what set off concerns that in the absence of real competition we needed rules to keep duopolies from abusing their market dominance.

Like Comcast and Verizon, AT&T is one of several companies that subsequently spent hundreds of millions of dollars to thwart these efforts, yet now would like you to believe they're somehow still a major ally in the fight to keep the internet healthy and open. And sure, AT&T supports not blocking websites entirely since that's not something ISPs were ever truly interested in anyway. The net neutrality debate has long since shifted from ham-fisted blocking to more clever applications of anti-competitive intent like interconnection, arbitrary and punitive usage caps, and zero rating.

Quinn's post is filled with alternative history, including this little gem:

"For more than a decade, whether under a Democratic or Republican administration, AT&T has supported the need for clear and enforceable open internet rules. We supported the efforts of Republican FCC Chairmen to introduce the nation’s first Open Internet Principles. And we welcomed FCC Chairman Genachowski’s Open Internet Order in 2010 and testified before Congress, as a Democratic witness, in support of it.

It should be reiterated that AT&T did support the FCC's original 2010 rules, but only because they were utter and total garbage, quite literally co-written by AT&T, Verizon and Google to ensure they were filled with loopholes. These loopholes allowed them to pretty much do whatever they wanted -- provided they pretended it was for the health and safety of the network. AT&T was also a major reason the rules didn't apply to wireless. When the FCC shored up those horrible rules in 2015, there was no more vocal opponent than AT&T, which is why this disingenuous prattle about supporting net neutrality is almost high art.

Also... Quinn's post pretends that the 2010 rules stayed in place until the evil Tom Wheeler overturned them... leaving out the fact that it was actually a lawsuit filed by Verizon that overturned the rules and explicitly told the FCC if it wanted these rules, it needed to use Title II. But in AT&T's revisionist history all that goes missing:

Unfortunately, in 2015, then-FCC Chairman Wheeler abandoned this carefully crafted framework and instead decided to subject broadband service to an 80-year-old law designed to set rates in the rotary-dial-telephone era. Saddling modern broadband infrastructure and investment decisions with heavy-handed, outdated telephone regulations creates an environment of market uncertainty that does little to advance internet openness. Instead, it jeopardizes the prospects for continued innovation and robust growth we have witnessed since the internet’s creation.

Not any bit of that is accurate. Internet access was under Title II until the mid-2000s and there was a ton of broadband infrastructure buildout (and... competition). And since Wheeler put things back under Title II, investment in broadband has continued.

So what's AT&T actually up to here? As we've mentioned previously, large ISPs want the current rules thrown out, and replaced with entirely new rules drafted by Congress. In an ideal world that would make sense, given that Congressional rules couldn't be overturned by the partisan whims of the FCC. But AT&T knows that Congress is such a epic shitshow these days that these replacement rules either won't happen, or they'll be quite literally written by AT&T lawyers. Quinn would have you simply ignore that our Congress is so awash in AT&T campaign contributions that a real net neutrality law of any worth is all-but impossible:

"The debate around an open internet has been going on for nearly 15 years. In the end, the issue is never really about what the rules should be or whether we should have an open internet. Rather, the debate focuses on whether open internet rules should derive from the 80-year-old Communications Act or some other theory of Congressional authority because the current law predates the internet. Instead of having this debate again, Congress should act now to provide the clear statutory authority that guarantees an open internet for all consumers."

So again, the goal here isn't to protect net neutrality. It's to kill effective and popular rules at the FCC, to gut nearly all regulatory authority over major ISPs, and to replace all of it with fluff, nonsense, and a piece of feel-good legislation that will be quite-literally crafted by AT&T lawyers. It's a pretty clever policy play by AT&T since it gives the impression they're not a bunch of anti-competitive jackasses. But AT&T pretending to care about an open internet is like Dracula suddenly professing a heartfelt concern for the plight of blood donors, or Jeffery Dahmer saying he just popped by to lend a helpful hand in the kitchen.

Filed Under: bob quinn, day of action, fcc, net neutrality, open internet
Companies: at&t

Telecom Industry Feebly Tries To Deflate Net Neutrality Protest With Its Own, Lame 'Unlock The Net' Think Tank Campaign

from the black-is-white,-up-is-down dept

With this week's net neutrality protests being joined by the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Reddit and hundreds of startups and small companies, the cable and broadcast industry appears to be getting a little nervous. So far they've had a relatively easy time convincing FCC boss Ajit Pai to not only dismantle the rules, but to blatantly ignore the massive public support the rules enjoy. Pai's even turned a blind eye as somebody used a bot to stuff the agency's public comment system with bogus support for the telecom industry's horrible idea.

The media coverage of this week's protest risks popping the narrative bubble that there's significant support for killing net neutrality. So the telecom-industry funded think tank FreedomWorks apparently came up with an ingenious plan to launch, well, something that kind of looks vaguely like a counter protest:

You'll note that this "unlock the net" campaign is designed to give the impression of a broad coalition of support for killing net neutrality, but only really lists a bunch of think tanks (like the Competitive Enterprise Institute) you're supposed to ignore are also funded by the telecom industry. And when you head over to the campaign's bare bones unlockthenet website, you're unsurprisingly greeted with a lot of logically-inconsistent talk about "freedom," and a backgrounder on how net neutrality is a villainous concept responsible for all manner of nefarious evils:

"The Internet has been an engine of innovation and growth for two decades because previous Republican and Democratic administrations correctly recognized how a federal regulatory assault on the Internet would undermine its evolution and expansion. Yet, without evidence of any problem, Obama’s FCC catered to scare tactics and misinformation campaigns driven by the left to take control of the Internet without congressional authority.

This shocking move by the federal government opened the doors for forms of online censorship, potentially new government taxes and fees, and resulting price hikes on consumers."

The hope, of course, is to use a lot of misleading bobble-headed partisan rhetoric to get hardline partisans rooting against their own best self interests, which, if you may have noticed recently, is a pretty effective tactic. Of course net neutrality exists to help thwart censorship and obnoxious price hikes on consumers, and there's a long, long list of examples of why a lack of broadband competition has made net neutrality protections necessary. And, contrary to the missive above, net neutrality rules exist to protect the innovation groups like these groups pretend to care so very deeply about.

The reality is a bipartisan majority of Americans support net neutrality protections because they are very familiar with the anti-competitive behavior of giant companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. And while it's not terribly likely a hacked-together campaign that prattles on about freedom is going to change that, it helps present the illusion that this is a debate that's far more publicly contentious than it actually is.

Filed Under: counter protest, fcc, net neutrality, think tanks, unlock the net

The FCC Insists It Can't Stop Impostors From Lying About My Views On Net Neutrality

from the simply-Comcastic dept

So we've been talking for months now about how the Trump FCC has quite intentionally turned a blind eye to fraudulent comments being posted to the agency's net neutrality proceeding, since the lion's share of these bogus comments support the agency's plan to gut the popular consumer protections. Numerous people say they've had their identities lifted by somebody that has used a bot to populate the agency's comment system with hundreds-of-thousands of fake comments supporting the telecom-industry backed effort. Calls by these folks (and a few Senators) for an investigation have been simply ignored.

I'm among the folks that had their identities used to generate bogus support for killing the rules. My case is, however, a bit more tailored and personal. Back in April, somebody posted this comment to the FCC comment system pretending to represent me and one of the websites I write for. In it, my obtuse doppleganger falsely claims I run an unlicensed political PAC, then proceeds to prattle through a series of repeatedly, painstakingly debunked claims about how the agency's arguably-modest rules somehow stifle investment, harm orphans, and damage the time-space continuum:

"I operate an unregistered PAC at DSLREPORTS.COM. We have found that the Obama administration's Title II order has diminished broadband investment, stifled innovation, and left American consumers potentially on the hook for a new broadband tax. Furthermore, under the Obama administration, the Wheeler FCC presided over a model whereby Internet competition has been stifled, and an unprecedented concentration of market power was allowed to occur with the Charter merger. Many unhappy users can attest to that on my political action website (DSLREPORTS.COM). I urge the Commission to roll back the failed Title II provisions and return the Internet to the people."

As somebody that has spent the better part of twenty years advocating for a healthy and open internet, this is obviously a little irritating, even if, by itself, I'm not egotistical enough to think it makes a difference one way or the other. But it is part of an over-arching and obvious trend at the FCC to try and dilute the value of public input on this proceeding, since they're well aware net neutrality has broad, bipartisan support (something yet another survey highlighted this week).

So, at the tail end of May I began filing complaints with the FCC's website administrators, and asking the agency's PR department to explain why they're doing nothing about the pile of bogus comments (some of which originate from dead people) spoiling what should be a simple democratic exercise. After repeated requests for comment, the agency said on June 2 that it had at least received my complaint, and would eventually get back to me. Another month passed -- and after several more prods this week I received this letter from G. Patrick Webre (pdf), acting chief of the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau.

While the letter contains numerous paragraphs, none of them actually say all that much -- except the part that tries to claim the agency is forbidden from somehow modifying or editing public proceeding comments:

Once filed in the FCC's rulemaking record, there are limits on the agency's ability to delete, change, or otherwise remove comments from the record. Doing so could undermine the FCC's ability to carry out its legal obligation, which is which is to respond to all significant issues raised in the proceeding.

To that end we continue to encourage you and all members of the public to submit comments to the FCC via ECFS (electronic comment filing system) that include accurate identifying information. This will ensure that the record reflects your views. You are welcome to include your correspondence on this matter -- including a statement that the comment you reference were not filed by you -- in ECFS for the public record.

While the FCC claims it faces "limits" on its ability to modify or delete comments, I've spoken to several former FCC staffers and one telecom industry lawyer unfamiliar with any such restrictions, especially when it applies to outright and obviously-fraudulent comments. A request to the FCC for a specific definition of these legal limits -- and a request for the IP address in question -- have yet to be responded to. The other problem is that the FCC is basically saying it doesn't care about any of this, informing users that have had their identities used to root against their own best self interests that they should just re-file new comments.

If you're thinking these comments don't really matter (which is clearly what the current FCC thinks), you'd be wrong. The 4 million comments filed during these rules' creation in 2015 helped shift former FCC Boss Tom Wheeler's thinking away from what would have originally been a potentially-legally unsupportable position, and toward classification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II. The comments also matter when it comes time to defend the policies in court, since they go a long way toward documenting whether the agency is actually supporting the public interest -- or just mindlessly being dictated to by deep pocketed incumbents.

In the broader context of the bogus bot issue -- we're at best witnessing outright apathy to identity theft and abuse of the FCC website -- and at worse an attempt to discredit legitimate opposition to FCC policy by effectively sanctioning fraudulent behavior. That's a curious policy decision for an FCC boss that has repeatedly claimed to be a stickler for professionalism and transparency. You have to think that if I began submitting copyright-violating missives -- or a hundred comments professing to be Ajit Pai or some other high-ranking FCC official -- the response would be notably...different.

And while the FCC may think it's immeasurably clever to quietly encourage illusory support for its attack on net neutrality, the agency's decision could prove problematic for it down the line.

After the public comment period, the agency is expected to vote again to finalizing dismantling the rules. After that will come the inevitable lawsuits by startups and consumer advocates. Pai and friends already faced a challenge in convincing the courts the broadband market changed substantively enough to warrant such a draconian and unpopular policy reversal. Now, net neutrality supporters may have some additional ammunition when it comes time to pointing out flaws in the FCC process, and how an agency that's supposed to represent the public interest -- pretty clearly doesn't.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fake comments, fcc, net neutrality