A few months ago I posted about a site called Consumeraffairs.com that referred to supporters of net neutrality regulation as a “rag tag band.” Pointing out that any coalition that includes the likes of Microsoft and Google simply cannot be “rag tag,” I concluded that “even wearing Underdog’s cape, net neutrality rules just won’t fly”.
Now it seems that while they didn’t quite get the substantive message, consumeraffairs.com has picked up some of the terminology. In a story posted yesterday, it lauded Rep. James Sensenbrenner for introducing a net regulation bill, saying “when it comes to the issue of net neutrality, Sensenbrenner is on the side of the underdog.”
At the risk of becoming repetitive, the underdog in this particular catfight includes the following companies (along with their rank on the Fortune 500 list):
Microsoft (48)
Intel (49)
Amazon.com (272)
Google (353)
Yahoo (412)
ebay (458)
Add to this the potential support of financial services firms, and underdog is looking like a pretty big pooch. This is not to say that regulation opponents don’t have some heavy-hitters on their side (for instance, a pack of tech manufacturers announced their opposition Wednesday). But it doesn’t take a bloodhound to see that this isn’t a big guy v. little guy fight.
Underdog’s cape still just doesn’t fit.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
Comments on this entry are closed.