FFTF, Comcast in Tug of War Over Title II Website
Fight for the Future is calling a cease-and-desist letter it received for FFTF's Comcastroturf.com "exactly why we need Title II net neutrality protections that ban blocking, throttling, and censorship." The letter, which says it is from LookingGlass Cyber Security Center…
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on behalf of Comcast, says the Comcastroturf.com domain is too close to "Comcast," violating the company's trademark, and the site should be reassigned to the cable operator. The site allows people to search if their names were attached to comments filed with the FCC in favor of a Communications Act Title II regulation of broadband rollback and to sign a petition demanding an investigation. FFTF said in a news release Tuesday if such a rollback happens, "there would be nothing preventing Comcast from simply blocking sites like Comcastroturf.com that are critical of their corporate policies. It also makes you wonder what Comcast is so afraid of? Are their lobbying dollars funding the astroturfing effort flooding the FCC with fake comments that we are encouraging Internet users to investigate?” FFTF, Demand Progress and Free Press are behind the Battle for the Net website that sends a form letter to the FCC opposing the Title II rollback. Comcast said it "supports strong, legally enforceable net neutrality rules and does not and will not block websites or content. Title II does not equal net neutrality." It also said, "Like most major brand owners, Comcast protects our company and brand names from being used improperly on the Internet by third parties. We use an established outside vendor to monitor for websites that use our name and brands without authorization, and the vendor routinely sends out notices to those sites. That is what happened here. This particular site also raised other legal issues supporting further investigation (for example, the site appears to collect personal information and has no posted privacy policy). After reviewing the site further, we do not plan additional action at this time.”