3 ISPs Have Spent $572 Million to Kill Net Neutrality Since 2008

A study by Maplight indicates that for every one comment submitted to the FCC on net neutrality (and there have been roughly 5 million so far), the telecom industry has spent $100 in lobbying to crush the open internet. The group found that Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) have spent $572 million on attempts to influence the FCC and other government agencies since 2008.

And, with a former Verizon lawyer leading the FCC's assault on popular net neutrality protections, it's obvious these efforts have clearly paid off after a rocky start.

"The FCC’s decision, slated to be announced later this summer, will be a clear indicator of the power of corporate cash in a Trump administration," notes the report. "Public sentiment is on the side of keeping the Obama administration’s net neutrality policies, which prevented internet companies from blocking, slowing or giving priority to different websites."

Congressional lobbying forms indicate that Comcast alone has spent nearly $4 million on lobbying Congress on net neutrality issues from the end of 2014 through the first quarter of 2017. Comcast was, of course, an early player in the conversation after it was caught repeatedly lying about throttling all upstream BitTorrent connections back in 2008.

Writer Andrew Jerell Jones also points out how Comcast-owned NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC can rarely be bothered to reveal their parent company's lobbying on this subject, or in fact cover net neutrality in their news reporting much at all. Even purportedly "progressive" MSNBC has been frequently criticized for rarely talking about the subject.

"NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC haven’t disclosed their company’s lobbyist spending on Capitol Hill during that time period," he notes. "And outside of a few news segments on CNBC - with either big tech figures expressing their support for net neutrality or telecom giants railing against it - Comcast networks have rarely featured or even mentioned the online topic on their shows at all, despite their gigantic Capitol Hill lobbyist spending on net neutrality."

Again, Comcast and other major ISPs' attacks on net neutrality come despite broad, bipartisan support for the rules. All of this spending and willful omission comes to a head tomorrow as net neutrality supporters intend to launch a online day of action to protest the FCC's plan to kill the current rules -- which protect consumers from duopolist ISPs looking to use the lack of broadband competition to additional anti-competitive advantage.