June 22nd, 2010 
Cliff Riseborough The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the top officers at the FCC are holding closed door negotiations with lobbyists representing ISP’s, including AT&T and Verizon, as well as Google and Skype. The reason for those meetings is discussion of a compromise that would give the government agency authority over Internet rules, while also bending enough that the media companies are willing to accept an agreement.
The only way to get legislation this year is for Internet providers and tech companies like Google to reach a compromise, one person involved with the FCC meetings said, adding, "Even that is really, really hard."
This news has not exactly been met with much enthusiasm from public interest groups, none of whom were invited to any of these sessions.
"For a president who talks big about transparency and that ‘he’ll take a back seat to nobody on net neutrality,’ it’s inexcusable that his FCC is brokering backroom deals between industry lobbyists with nary a public interest representative in the room," said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a public interest group.
"This secretive process is especially unseemly for what is supposed to have been the most transparent FCC in history," the Media Access Project’s Andrew Schwartzman chimed in just a few minutes ago.
The problem is that with everything being done in such a secretive manner, there is no way for anyone to know what exactly is on the table in terms of compromises made to the media corporations. That’s an especially big issue for an FCC that has made claims and promises of transparency and openness during any and all negotiations over net neutrality.
Beyond the FCC, it seems that similar secretive negotiations are happening between the same lobby groups and the Senate Commerce Committee. The talks will not be open to the press, and there is no indication that any consumer groups will be in attendance.
(The original WSJ article is behind a subscriber paywall, but can be found and read in full via Google. Thanks also to Ars Technica).
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This is leading down that dark path of prohibition. Are these media companies sure that want to go that way? With the billions (trillions?) of dark fibers underneath our neighborhoods and cities, this will surely bring about more ‘home brew’ alternatives and more than likely, better.
They are not thinking ahead. As communication technology advances, there will be less need for land lines, in which satellite communication will mature — free to air will be difficult to regulate.
Or perhaps they ARE thinking ahead, seeing less opportunity to dominate media in the future, and trying to make as much cash as they can in the here and now.