== Telcos using our money to trick us into a NO on Net Neutrality!

magellan

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Fri Jun-02-06 01:48 AM
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== Telcos using our money to trick us into a NO on Net Neutrality!

Heads up!! At this moment there are ads running on TV claiming the Telcos want Net Neutrality to keep us from having something called TV Choice. The ad urges us to contact our reps and urge a NO on Net Neutrality.

I finally caught the name of the sponsor of these ads: TV 4 US. I knew this was crap, a scam against the uninformed, and lo and behold, here's what just one blog says about TV 4 US, what else they're doing, and who they really work for:

AT&T using your money to trick you

The latest telco-fueled effort to scare Americans to side with AT&T against Net Neutrality:

Be on the alert for friendly callers bearing lies about increased costs to consumers.

Here�s what �k0� had to report about this latest telco effort to deceive customers:

I just got a phone call by a nice lady that tried to persuade me that net neutrality is bad. Because there is an internet price increase coming really really soon, and Google wants me to pay for it. The dialog went something like this: (obligatory awkward call center pause) Her: �Hello, I�m calling from a non profit organization called TV 4 US, and we call consumers about an upcoming internet price hike. The big internet companies, like, (small pause) Microsoft want you to pay for that. Do you think that is fair?� Me, confused: �Uhm, what are you calling about?� Her: �The internet is going to be more expensive, because big companies like Microsoft and Google are wasting all our bandwidth. Do you think consumers should pay for that? Or should the big companies that are wasting the bandwidth pay for that?� At which point I tried to argue that companies use bandwidth because consumers use their services, but of course she was trained to end her call as soon as she would hit a road block. I managed to get a little bit of information about her non profit before she hung up tho: TV 4 US apparently doesn�t have a website. Maybe they want to save some of that precious bandwidth before Google and Microsoft are gonna waste it all. But they can be reached at 888-346-1400. Just in case you want to tell them what you think about dumbing down policy issues.
Indeed, �TV 4 US� (they do have a Web site) is yet another AT&T-backed front group that is burning through telco cash to spread the lie that Net Neutrality will cost consumers.

What�s really costing consumers isn�t Net Neutrality but the phone companies� multi-million-dollar campaign to kill it. Companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have spent tens of millions of dollars on canned phone calls, advertisements, DC lobbyists and phony front groups to squash our genuine grassroots effort.

snip

This is LOW. And I've checked the details of the registrant for (TV 4 US) wewantchoice.com -- it's all private, pointing back to the hosting service, which stinks to high heaven for an alleged "pro-consumer" group. If they were legit, why wouldn't they want anyone to know who's behind the website?

For anybody who may be wondering, Net Neutrality is a GOOD thing. It means keeping the internet the way it is instead of letting telcos dole out bandwidth to the highest bidders (corporations) and throttling bandwidth to smaller sites that can't afford to pay as much. i.e. it's a way of controlling information flow, and it will effect all of us if it passes. We should be urging our reps to vote YES on Net Neutrality.

And DO drop by TV 4 US and let them know just how you feel about their lies.

:evilgrin: