Google Betrays Internet Principle to Fatten Bottom Line, Consumer Watchdog Says

/PRNewswire/ -- Google is compromising a long standing principle it claimed to support in an effort to boost profits as it backs away from a key premise of an open Internet -- "net neutrality," Consumer Watchdog said today.

Net neutrality -- the idea that all data is treated equally by Internet service providers -- is a key principle of the Internet. Google has long claimed to be an advocate of the principle. Today, both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported that Google and Verizon are close to a deal that would let Verizon speed some online content more quickly to Internet users if content providers paid for the privilege.

Wednesday, Google Chairman offered a new definition of net neutrality. Speaking at a technology symposium in Lake Tahoe, he said: "I want to make sure that everybody understands what we mean about it. What we mean is that if you have one data type, like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favor of another. It's OK to discriminate across different types..."

"Apparently Google redefines principles to suit the business need of the moment," said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with the nonpartisan, nonprofit group. "Google and Verizon have great incentive to cut deals because of the relationship between their rivals, Apple and AT&T. What Google and Verizon are trying to do is carve up the Internet behind closed doors for their own benefit."

Consumer Watchdog said that net neutrality has always meant that all types of data are treated equally by an Internet service provider. Net neutrality should apply to both the wired and wireless Internet, the nonprofit, nonpartisan group said.

Meanwhile, a national poll released by Consumer Watchdog found that a significant majority of Americans are troubled by recent revelations that Google's Street View cars gathered communications from home WiFi networks, and they want stronger legal protection to preserve their online privacy.

While Google received an overall 74% favorable rating, nearly two-thirds of those polled (65%) say the Wi-Spy scandal is one of the things that "worries them most" or a "great deal" with another 20% saying it "raises some concern" when considering Internet issues.

The poll, conducted for Consumer Watchdog by Grove Insight, Ltd., found a solid majority (55%) is also bothered ("one of the most" or "great deal") by Google's cooperation with the National Security Agency without saying what information is being shared. Even more voters call for Congressional hearings on "Google's gathering data from home WiFi networks and its sharing of information with U.S. spy agencies like the National Security Administration, the NSA" (69% favor, 19% oppose).

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Tennis Channel Files FCC Complaint Against Comcast

/PRNewswire/ -- On Tuesday, January 5, Tennis Channel filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission demonstrating that Comcast Cable Communications is violating the FCC's program carriage rules, which prohibit cable system operators from discriminating against unaffiliated cable programming services in favor of networks they own. According to the complaint, Comcast isolates Tennis Channel on a premium sports tier received by a small fraction of Comcast subscribers while it carries Comcast-owned networks that compete with Tennis Channel on basic tiers available to far more subscribers at no additional charge.

"We did not want to file this complaint, but Comcast has left us with no choice," said Ken Solomon, chairman and CEO of Tennis Channel. "After steadily building the most comprehensive single-sport network in television over the past few years, in the first half of 2009 we had numerous discussions with Comcast. We made offers with added incentives for it to move us to a competitive, broadly penetrated service tier, as it has done recently with the MLB, NHL and NBA channels, in which it has financial interests. But Comcast declined to do so."

According to evidence included in the complaint, Tennis Channel's ratings performance is comparable in its service area to that of Comcast's leading sports services, the Golf Channel and Versus; it offers coverage of all four of tennis' Grand Slam events, while the Golf Channel and Versus offer little or no comparable coverage of the major events in the sports they cover; it charges a per-subscriber rate that is about half the rate charged by the Golf Channel and Versus, but broadcasts more than 2,700 hours per year of event coverage - compared to 2,400 hours on the Golf Channel and 1,350 hours on Versus; and it offers a full-time high-definition service.

Comcast's Golf Channel and Versus are among the most broadly distributed channels on Comcast systems, reaching almost all of Comcast's 23.8 million subscribers, according to the complaint, while Tennis Channel is limited to the added-cost premium sports tier that reaches only about 2.6 million homes. "This ten-to-one disparity in carriage seriously impedes our ability to grow and compete in the sports cable marketplace," said Solomon. "It results solely from Comcast's decision to protect the services it owns from legitimate competition."

The complaint notes that Comcast executives have conceded that they give special carriage consideration to their owned services and that advertiser-supported services like Tennis Channel cannot succeed if they are carried on the Comcast sports tier. The complaint also establishes that only unaffiliated sports networks are carried on that tier and that all of the services in which Comcast has an interest enjoy considerably broader coverage.

"This case is truly the litmus test for unaffiliated programmers everywhere, and the future of the public's interest in having a wide variety of voices and choice in the media marketplace," said Solomon. "Ultimately, we simply want to be treated comparably to the way Comcast treats the sports program services it owns."

Tennis Channel (www.tennischannel.com) is the only 24-hour, television-based multimedia destination dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle. A hybrid of comprehensive sports, health, fitness, pop culture, entertainment, lifestyle and travel programming, the network is home to every aspect of the wide-ranging, worldwide tennis community. It also has the most concentrated single-sport coverage in television, with telecast rights to the US Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros (French Open), Australian Open, Olympus US Open Series, ATP Masters Series, top-tier Sony Ericsson WTA Tour championship competitions, Davis Cup and Fed Cup by BNP Paribas, and Hyundai Hopman Cup. Tennis Channel is carried by nine of the top 10 MSOs, Verizon FiOS TV, and has a national footprint via DIRECTV and DISH Network.

The sport of tennis itself is currently enjoying major growth. Thirty million Americans played tennis last year, the most in two decades, according to study commissioned by the United States Tennis Association and Tennis Industry Association. A Sports Illustrated list of the top 10 athletes of the past decade included two tennis players and named a tennis player No. 1. Additionally, Tennis Channel's ratings for top-level tennis events are competitive with those for programming on the highest-ranking cable networks.

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