Comcast Now Says It Will Not Sue FCC [View all]

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/26/comcast-we-will-sue-to-slow-the-web.html

Comcast Now Says It Will Not Sue FCC


The company says the FCC overreached by passing rules to stop Internet service providers from blocking sites and slowing traffic. The problem is, Comcast’s admitted to doing just that.

Despite tens of millions of corporate dollars in last-minute lobbying, the Federal Communications Commission passed new rules Thursday reclassifying the Internet as a public utility and preventing Internet service providers from artificially slowing down the Web.

Now Comcast is calling “inevitable” lawsuits to nullify the rules a “certainty,” and the company says it will pressure legislators to draft a law that will override the FCC’s decision.

snip//


Update – 2/27/2015, 11:30 a.m.: Comcast Vice President of Government Communications Sena Fitzmaurice sought to clarify that the company will not sue the FCC, despite a statement from the company’s Executive Vice President David L. Cohen yesterday saying “the only ‘certainty’ in the Open Internet Space is that we all face inevitable litigation.”

“AT&T and Verizon have publicly, vocally said they will sue. Comcast has not,” she said. “We haven’t seen the order, we don’t know what is in it – our reference to inevitable regulation is related to the very direct statements by others they will sue – not that we will.”

When asked to clarify if “when Cohen refers to ‘we all,’ he is not referring to Comcast or a trade organization of which Comcast is a part,” Fitzmaurice said:

“Comcast has not said it will sue… {He} means all players in the marketplace.”

Asked if “’we’ in this instance {as stated in yesterday’s press release} does not mean ‘ourselves and others,’ as in the dictionary definition,” Fitzmaurice responded, “Comcast will not sue. Full stop.”