Netiquette IQ Blog of The Day - Another Dire Threat to Internet Freedom

Often, I have written about and featured article regarding the overturn of regulations which had assured equal access for everyone on the Internet. Now, any ISP can charge for any service, segregate access or otherwise limit in anyway they decide. This is a very dangerous situation for any netizen. We must all be aware and do all we can to assure these thins do not happen.

There probably aren’t very many Americans who think that Comcast -- the nation’s largest cable and Internet company -- should be even bigger and even more powerful than it already is.
But if Comcast’s pending $45.2 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable is allowed to move forward, it would create a massive corporate media conglomerate unlike anything we’ve seen before,¹ controlling the Internet access for an astounding 60% of U.S. households.²
A combined Comcast-Time Warner would decrease competition, increase cable and Internet costs for tens of millions of Americans and threaten the free and open nature of the Internet. The FCC can stop this dangerous consolidation of our media from taking place by blocking the proposed merger, but that won’t happen unless we demand it.
Deadline Monday: Submit a public comment now telling the FCC to take a stand against media consolidation and stop the disastrous Comcast-Time Warner merger.
One of the biggest threats posed by this proposed merger is to a free and open Internet. Comcast owns countless movie studios and television networks, including big names like Universal Studios and NBC. Allowing this merger to move forward would create an unacceptable economic incentive for the company to restrict bandwidth or discriminate in other ways against competing content providers like Netflix.
Comcast has a well-deserved reputation for treating its customers poorly.³ In fact, in an annual survey of consumers this spring, it topped Monsanto, Koch Industries and Verizon to be voted the “worst company in America.”⁴ The FCC shouldn’t allow such a massive and disliked company to become bigger and even more powerful than it already is.
Predictably, Comcast has hired an army of Washington, DC lobbyists and is doing everything in its power to push this deal through. It has even gone as far as spending $110,000 on a dinner honoring one of the Democrats on the FCC⁵ -- a donation that Comcast had to redirect as a general donation to the sponsoring organization after it came under public scrutiny.
The FCC is taking public comments on the proposal for the next few days, so we need to rise up in opposition today.
1. "Here's The Insanely Long List Of Things Comcast Would Own After Buying Time Warner Cable," Business Insider, February 13, 2014
2. "Why Netflix Stands Alone Against The Comcast-Time Warner Merger," Forbes, April 22, 2014
3. "Why Comcast’s disconnection nightmare is even scarier than it sounds," July 15, 2014
4. "Comcast wins! (Worst company in America)," CNET, April 10, 2014
5. "Comcast and Time Warner fund event for FCC regulator while seeking merger approval," Washington Post, August 13, 2014

Stop the Comcast-TimeWarner merger

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 In addition to this blog, I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, "Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

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 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ Rider University and  PSG of Mercer County New Jersey.
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Posted by: Margaret Rouse