FCC Staff Back AOL-Time Warner Deal

Donavan writes "Yahoo Finance is reporting that the merger between AOL and Time Warner has been reccomended for approval."

Comments

It doesn't matter what the FCC thinks...

[tetrad]

It doesn't matter what the FCC thinks, if the European Union eventually blocks the deal, as many expect it to do.

Man, you got to feel sorry for these multi-billion dollar, global corporations. They have to hire lobbyists in *so* many countries...

Reality check.

[Brian Kendig]

The United States government likes big business. The Federal Trade Commission is not in the business of shooing away eight-hundred-pound gorillas. This is capitalism at work, and America doesn't want to stifle it and give foreign corporations the opportunity to swoop in and take the glory.

The AOL/TW deal will go through. The only question is how many concessions will be made by AOL/TW in the process of getting the deal through. That's the only purpose of this elaborate dance going on right now.

I think that hackers, as a general rule, tend to dislike seeing any one entity gain dominance in an area. Whenever a company gets too big, true geeks get worried. The American legal system works differently, however; the idea of 'innocent until proven guilty' still permeates the system. The proposed merger of AOL/TW can't be blocked based on the problems they could cause. Instead, all that can be done is to take all the necessary legal precautions, have all the right people sign all the right promises, then set the behemoth free... and then if it gets out of line, the task begins to rein it in.

I believe that AOL/TW won't quickly or intentionally start to test its legal limits -- it sees what's going on with Microsoft, and the last thing it wants to have happen would be for any legal precedent set in the Microsoft case to be applied in turn to AOL/TW.

FCC *NOT* FTC

[Masem]

After 60 posts, everyone is making the same mistake.

The story in question talks about the FCC -the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION. They have no say about anti-trust issues, or anything else of that nature. However, they are in charge of the communications infrastructure, and the only thing that they really can be concerned with is having AOL/TW close all the carrier lines in the US. On CNN's take, the FCC only insisted that AOL/TW have open lines for third parties, which AOL/TW gladly agreed to.

On the other hand, the FTC - FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, is still mulling the issue of anti-trust/monopoly actions on this merger, and the merger cannot happen until they give the gree light. They are still worried about the size and the number of areas that this merged company would control, similar to the EU commission. AOL/TW wants to have the FCC's acceptence in place as another card for dealing with the FTC and EU commission.

The deal is by no ways done. And the concerns of the FTC very much outway those that the FCC would be worried about.