There’s a public relations war underway between Netflix and Comcast over the issues of net neutrality and anti-competitive practices. It appears that Netflix and internet users’ fears of what an unprotected internet might look like has possibly started coming true. I have blogged about net neutrality in the past, but the issue has seen some recent developments and I’d like to comment on the issues as well as how PR professionals are handling the situation…
In a blog post published in March, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings outlined the importance of net neutrality legislation and what the repercussions of not doing so might be. Now in the past, these sorts of discussions were full of hypothetical examples of what could happen in an unprotected internet, with the prime example being ISPs choosing to slow down or completely censor specific websites for its customers. What we have seen now in recent months, is these hypothetical scenarios have actually started happening.
In February, Netflix made a deal with Comcast to guarantee high performance connection to its customers. Netflix made a similar deal with Verizon in April. Netflix is PAYING money to ISPs in order to reach its customers, much like customers pay money to ISPs in order to reach Netflix. This is blatant corporate extortion and cannot be permitted. I’m all for free market and stuff, but the internet has become one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in our society. These ISPs have decided to go into the business of connecting us all to the internet, and they should be required do so on our terms. The internet is not “theirs” to censor and manipulate. This is not a farfetch idea. Telephone companies have been required to abide by strict regulation similar to proposed net neutrality regulation for decades.
Now back to the most recent developments in the net neutrality debate. Recently, in the past few months, Comcast customers have began complaining of slow buffer speeds and low video quality when using Netflix. But Comcast and Netflix made a deal to ensure high quality connections! Last week, Comcast CEO Jennifer Khoury accused Netflix of intentionally slowing down connections to its users in an attempt to smear her company. As of now, it’s impossible to tell which party is telling the truth.
