AT&T Pretends To Love Net Neutrality, Joins Tomorrow's Protest With A Straight Face (techdirt.com)

Karl Bode, writing for TechDirt: 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.

Comments

Bargaining chip in Time Warner acquisition

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet this is nothing more than a bargaining chip - AT&T can probably make or break the FCC's repeal of Title II. They want the FTC and DoJ to approve their acquisition of Time Warner. But the Chief Executive has previously suggested he would see the merger blocked, and of late has been agitating against some of the key content producers.

No, they're not really helping "the good guys" but for once the enemy of my enemy may be my ally in this fight, if only incidentally.

At least, until the TW acquisition is approved. Then they'll accept whatever conditions, which probably include backing off Title II and Net Neutrality support.
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