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How Big Telecom Tried To Kill Net Neutrality Before It Was Even a Concept
An anonymous reader writes This opinion piece at Ars looks at the telecommunications industry's ability to shape policy and its power over lawmakers. "...as the Baby Bells rolled out their DSL service, they saw the cable industry's more relaxed regulations and total lack of competition and wanted the same treatment from the government. They launched a massive lobbying effort to push the Clinton and Bush administrations, the Federal Communication Commission, and Congress to eliminate the network sharing requirement that had spawned the CLEC market and to deregulate DSL services more broadly. Between 1999 and 2002 the four companies spent a combined $95.6 million on lobbying the federal government, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which would rank them above such trade group lobbying behemoths as the Chamber of Commerce and the American Medical Association in total lobbying expenditures for the years. The companies also spent millions to lobby the public directly through aggressive advertising and public relations campaigns."
Fellow readers, beware of astroturf comments.
We know that the big companies hire agencies to send fake letters of support to government agencies, letters purported to come from everyday people in support of whatever the big company wants to do at the time.
We also know that the big companies hire agencies to send fake letters of support from politicians that support whatever the big company wants to do at the time. We know that political campaigns do the same thing.
I've been interested in ghostwriting/astroturfing for awhile now. It seems reasonable that if a company has enough money to mount a fake grassroots campaign, then some of that money would be put towards shaping public opinion on public boards.
Especially a highly popular board frequented by all the smart people in the country.
Looking at one previous article about network access I can't help but get the impression that people are reaching around backwards to make their point. The plight of all those poor, twisted arguments brings a tear to my eye.
Really - watch the commentary on these articles and see if any of the arguments seem weak or contrived.
We may be infested with astroturfers.
Between 1999 and 2002 the four companies spent a combined $95.6 million on lobbying the federal government, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics...
When done in other countries, my government calls it corruption. When done here, it's called lobbying.
Question is: Who is lobbying on behalf of Joe Six Pack and family?
Question is: Who is lobbying on behalf of Joe Six Pack and family?
Lots of groups!
Here's a list:
The National Smoker’s Alliance
The 50 Cent Party
Center For Consumer Freedom
Al Gore’s Penguin Army
Microsoft
Save Our Species Alliance
Working Families For Wal-Mart
The Big Ten Network
Comcast
GOP
(NB: The companies listed come from an article titled: "Ten Horrible Examples Of Astroturfing")
Hmm, $95.6M in lobbying over three years...
That's $31.9M per year, spread across four companies.
Or an average of about $8M per year each.
Let's see. Annual revenue for those companies averages in excess of $50B each (two of them managed to make >$210B, so I didn't even bother checking the other two, just used the revenue for those two averaged over four companies).
So, they're spending an average of 0.016% of their income on lobbying.
Frankly, given the power of the federal government, spending that LITTLE to buy favourable legislation is surprising.
Do remember, the more power the government has, the more worthwhile it is to just buy laws that favour you.
No, that would be graft, not corruption. There is a difference, though it's pretty much hairsplitting....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The only possible way to counter these bastards is with an absolute avalanche of public backlash. It worked in turning Wheeler around; now we need to turn up the heat on our so-called 'representatives'. To hell with big cable and telecom. Burn their crops and salt their fields. Rip their monopolistic power from their hands and savour the sound of them kicking and screaming the entire way.