Internet Firms Raise Profile on Capitol Hill

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Internet companies have long been dwarfed in Washington by the lobbying might of telecoms. But now some firms are beefing up their D.C. operations, the Wall Street Journal reports, partly in an effort to push legislation that would prevent telephone companies from charging Internet companies for guaranteed fast delivery of Internet content. A telecom lawyer hired by Google last summer to build the company's Washington office tells the WSJ, 'Carrier control over Internet activity is bad for consumers. ... We're not worried consumers won't be able to reach Google. The real threat is to the next Google and to the services that are important for consumers.'"

Comments

Google + Lawyers

[bloggins02]

A telecom lawyer hired by Google last summer to build the company's Washington office...

Ahh yes, the highly successful but less-well-known Google "Summer of Torts" project...

the old-fashioned way

[shmlco]

I suggest we resolve such disputes the old-fashioned way. Two opposing lobbyists with unreconcilable differences would pace off thirty paces, turn, take aim, and fire. Winner takes all.

At the very least, we'd halve the number of available lobbyists... and if successful we could apply it to CEOs, lawyers, and politicians.

Re:the old-fashioned way

[jpardey]

I think a modern method would be more appropriate. Find an underground nuke test site, give each lobbyist an H-bomb, and twenty paces. Winner takes all. This method would work fairly well on the afformentioned CEOs, etc, as well. And the efficiency rate is double!

So, youse internet guys

[Maxo-Texas]

If you want "protection" from those telecom boys, you going to need to pony up some cash to us in the Congress gang.