Legal Niches

FCC - ITI Closed Meetings Agitate Net Roots

By james_fudge

The FCC continues to listen to stakeholders in ongoing closed door meetings about net neutrality and some advocacy groups are pretty upset about it. Public interest groups are upset that a new round of net neutrality talks at the Information Technology Industry Council has once again excluded the net roots.

Instead, the FCC is listening to Internet and telecommunication lobbyists; yesterday they continued discussions at the D.C. offices of the ITI, according to Politico's Morning Tech. Negotiations, despite the frequency of meetings, have not gone well due in no small measure to the Google and Verizon proposal. This latest round of talks includes ITI members Cisco, Microsoft, and Skype, as well as AT&T, Verizon and NCTA.

Notable absences included ITI members Amazon and eBay (through represenation by Open Internet Coalition) and Google (who is not an ITI member). ITI is hosting the talks.

Advocates who represent the internet community, and who would normally support the OIC, are pretty upset that no group representing its interests were present during the meetings.

Source: Morning Tech

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on August 19, 2010 (boomark / email).