AOL/Time-Warner Won't Advertise Competition

mojo-raisin writes: "According to this article on ISPworld, AOL/Time-Warner is refusing to run advertisments for small and medium-sized dial-up and DSL service providers on their cable network. This practice is reported to have begun shortly after the merger announcement last year, and is taking place in New York, Texas and Wisconsin."

Comments

Re:Bush won't do sh!t.

[ichimunki]

No stake except that their golfing buddies and relatives are still heavily invested. Not to mention campaign contributors. Who do you think gave Bush enough money to edge out McCain in the first place? From my informal sense of public opinion, McCain wouldn't have needed the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court to hand him the presidency. He would have handily crushed Al Gore.

If you honestly believe that after years of living with, working with, and hanging out with oil industry moguls and having an immense personal stake (even if it now "sold") in the oil industry that Bush and Cheney are anywhere near approaching objective on the issue of oil, then you are seriously delusional. Of course, as Americans, we all have a stake in the oil industry. Without oil we wouldn't even have server farms to worry about during blackouts, or SUV's, or highway systems to drive them on. Okay, well we might have them, but not at the incredible prices we have them now. I mean a gallon of gas costs less than a gallon of milk-- that's a bargain.

This is why a strong watchdog is needed

[flatpack]

Especially when so many huge media corporations are merging and taking each other to form such massive conglomerates, a strong government watchdog is needed to prevent these abuses of power. If AOL/Time Warner are allowed to get away with this, then they are basically being allowed to suppress their competition, and what kind of free market supports this? No kind at all.

The free market ideal that American culture reveres is only possible given a lack of monopolies and informed consumers. Here we have the worst of both worlds - a near-monopoly ensuring that consumers are ill-informed! And since other companies are just as bad, the only place we, the people, can turn to is the government. It is their duty to ensure that our needs are put first, rather than those of the corporate warlords.

Unfortunately, I somehow doubt Bush will see it that way. He's all for corporate power and unaccountability - just look at how so much of America's War on Drugs is now persued by private companies unaccountable to the electorate. Remember - you can vote to change your government, but you can't do anything to change a corporation.

Oh dear

[flatpack]

I've been corrected by a Randite drone. How awful.

Bullshit! What we need is for people to take responsibility for their own lives.

Since the government represents the people, that's what I was talking about. Still, nice attempt at a strawman.

What is wrong with a corporation deciding how to use its own property?

When that usage is detrimental to people? Or do you believe that corporations are better than people? Oh wait, you probably do if you're spouting Randite crap at me. So it's alright for corporations to pollute then, because it's "how they use their own property"?

Is Budwiser going to start placing Miller Lite ads on it's beer cans? Of course not. But by your argument, the government should step in and force such things to happen.

*sigh* Strawman. Again. Budweiser is not in the advertising business now is it? Since media corporations have such a huge influence on society, it is only right that government ensures their fairness. Just look at the most respected news source on the planet - the BBC. A publicly-run organisation!

Oh, and you forgot to mention "jack-booted thugs" in your tirade.

It is the government's first and foremost duty to protect the constitutional rights of the individual against the tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, the government has failed at even this.

And equally so, it is their duty to protect the rights of the majority against the tyranny of the capitalist elite. Because since the US is so profit-driven, majority is defined in terms of monetary value, and the "majority" is actually those who control 5% of the population and over half of its wealth.

And yet, the government has failed in this duty, thanks to fools like you that think "wealth creation" is some kind of sacred goal to be valued above all else, even things like human dignity.

Remember that there is no such dichotomy as "human rights" versus "property rights."

Yup, one is worth fighting for, the other is a byproduct of a capitalist society.

No human rights can exist without property rights.

Translation: if you don't own anything, you have no rights. Those that own more, have more rights to do as they please.

Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life.

In your ideal society, please explain to me how wage slavery would be prevented.

To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the "right" to "redistribute" the wealth produced by others is claiming the "right" to treat human beings as chattel.

No, because people have fundamental rights irrespective of whether or not they own property. Only Randroid nuts like you would think otherwise. By your reckoning the homeless, refugees and hunter-gatherer tribes do not have any rights, such as the right to life. What self-serving bullshit.

It's a great philosophy for people with plenty of resources and a lack of empathy for other people. Thankfully, most people aren't that cold.

Surprised?

[anonicon]

From the article, it's apparent that AOL/Warner is adhering to the letter of the agreement if not the spirit by allowing national ISPs like "EarthLink, Juno Online Services Inc. and High Speed Access Corp. to meet the merger conditions, (but) most small and regional ISPs have felt frozen out of open access." While this is clearly wrong, I don't know if it is illegal since after all it was the FCC who said AOL/TW had to open their lines to competitors and they have done so.

More troublesome is the fact that AOL/TW is blocking content from Joe User because Joe User's sponsor is barred by AOL/TW. "Last fall, Time Warner refused to let Westlake High use one of its channels to rebroadcast football games if Texas.Net continued as an advertiser (for Westlake High). Texas.net had advertised with Time Warner for several years prior to the fall of 2000 only to be told that Time Warner would not renew Westlake High School's TV contract if Texas.net was a sponsor."

This seems to be illegal because now AOL/TW are telling User X that their sponsors have to first be subject to AOL/TW approval. Talk about a present and long-term potential abuse of monopoly power. What other roadblocks will AOL/TW impose on people/organizations who want to use their network when they're the only game in town?

All in all, not surprising - is anyone surprised when large companies do this sort of thing?

Cheers.

It's spreading throughout the huge company.

[Fat Casper]

I liked it when Time-Warner bought out our local cable company. It was only a cable company, but they had been very active in the community, sponsoring scholarships and local events. Now that it's owned by a national, we are bombarded with ads claiming that the "cable advantage" is that it's local. So don't go sattelite, because that money doesn't stay local. I don't see them sponsoring anything here anymore, though.

Now to grind my own personal axe. Has anyone seen Headline News since the merger? It used to be a dependable source of real news. Now they have co-anchors, tell me who's having a birthday and spend 5 of their 30 minutes telling me what movies are going to be on TV tonight!!! The other night I saw a tech consultant (you can't pay attention to them, except for entertainment) that I thought they said was from AOL. Maybe we should call Bernard Shaw out of retirement. HE'd never allow this to continue.