What the Comcast Lobbyist Did Not Say
August 11th, 2006 by tkarrDavid Cohen is Comcast’s uber-lobbyist. His role is to help the company quash potential competition. Cohen operates in D.C., at state capitals, and city hall. When Comcast believes that competition will emerge, they call on Mr. Cohen.
For example, Comcast played a major role in the passage of anti-public interest legislation in a number of states banning community broadband networks.
Now the Roberts family has set Mr. Cohen to undermine what is the biggest threat to the nation’s # 1 cable monopoly: an open Internet. Cohen just wrote an op-ed yesterday in the San Jose Mercury News.
He had the chutzpah to say that rules ensuring all online content was treated fairly would be harmful because they could stifle “a child friendly-content zone” online! This coming from one of the leading providers of porn—Comcast!
Comcast has also just begun promoting some of its new on-demand channels, including Playboy, Howard Stern, and something called “Dating on Demand.” (from its Web site: “our stealth crew of sneaky eavesdroppers trails close behind and captures everything on tape. And we mean everything — the good, the bad and the “Holy crap can you believe he did that!”).
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So, when Mr. Cohen (pictured right) makes the phony charge that Net Neutrality would take channel space away from kids services or health information—what he really means is that Comcast wants to control all the space itself. It wants to use bandwidth/channel capacity so it can profit from porn and other high-revenue content.
It doesn’t want any video or online competition to emerge that might take away eyeballs, ad dollars, and subscription revenues.
The truth is Comcast, like other net neutrality opponents AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner, are terrified of an open Internet. If the Net remains open, then anyone can provide phone or video service. Who would need a Comcast then? No one.
That’s why Comcast is opposed to net neutrality, and why it is buying next-generation broadband technology from Cisco. Comcast wants to serve as a gatekeeper over the flow of video and data coming into our homes. Net neutrality rules would prevent Comcast from becoming a digital super-monopoly.
Beware of cable lobbyists—they’re a hazard to our democracy’s health.
– This post is by Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy — a SavetheInternet.com Coalition member. Read more at Jeff’s blog “Digital Destiny.”
August 14th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
[…] I don’t know if you have an ebay membership or if you received Meg Whitman’s email asking for Ebay Members to support Net Neutrality. Apparently David Cohen, Executive Vice President of Comcast and a vocal Net Neutrality opponent, did. He emailed her back and asked for a more “neutral” forum in which to discuss the issue. I find that ironic considering he recently used the “child pron” trump card to discourage anyone from supporting Net Neutrality, which is really smarmy considering that Comcast pushes pron on its own network, a network that has already been proven to be non neutral. Don’t believe me? Ask State of Washington employees if they still use Comcast for their State VPN. […]
August 15th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Cohen is a sly dog. A casual reader not on their toes would easily finish his Mercury times article with a bad taste for net neutrality in his mouth. Amazing how he is able to reverse net neutrality into a bad thing, while gloriously uplifting comast as a pioneer or innovation. Anyone who has ever had comcast for TV or internet would know that is no where near true. We must stay on our toes and fight for the freedom on which this country was founded. Cohen said that net nuetrality would turn broadband providers into “dumb pipes.” It seems like that’s exactly what they should be.
August 16th, 2006 at 12:37 am
No doubt about that. People’s electricity isn’t cut off when they plug in the wrong brand of toaster. Their water isn’t shut off when they buy the wrong brand of shampoo. Then why should their ISP block their favorite web sites and content?
There is absolutely no justification for net discrimination. To those who would block my access to legal content for their own selfish gain, I say this… LIVE FREE OR DIAL-UP!
JR
August 27th, 2006 at 5:30 am
Okay, if all this is to take place what is stopping people from putting together a class action lawsuit against these companies. This would clearly be a violation of the first amendment of the Constitution. Also, monopolies are illegal in this country. Just look aat what happened to microsoft. Or people could unite and cancel their service altogether. Besides comcast sucks. I do know a work around so you can use comcast service for speed but bypass it’s DNS servers. If you’re not using their DNS servers then how can they restrict you. If you’re not using theit main network they can’t block shit. Sorry bitches. F Comcast.
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