We've long criticized the broadband industry's biggest companies for their unethical practices when it comes to DC lobbying, from the creation of artificial consumer groups, to the "co-opting" of legitimate groups who parrot anti-consumer phone or cable company lobbying positions for donations. While with one hand AT&T and Verizon are busy publicly throwing their support behind the FCC's new neutrality rules, with the other hand they're doing things like scaring their employees into flooding the FCC comment system from their home e-mail addresses, or using fake and/or hijacked organizations to bombard the FCC with complaints.

The companies AT&T, Verizon and Comcast hire to run these kinds of modern disinformation operations (and win "ethics awards" for doing it) are usually fairly slick outfits, using a combination of fake consumer groups, compromised real consumer groups, and regular lobbyists to create the illusion of broad support for corporate positions. Usually this is done without the press or public noticing the men behind the curtain, but occasionally they screw up. Take for instance this letter from the "Arkansas Retired Seniors Coalition" to the FCC opposing neutrality:Note how the seemingly non-existent organization forgot to remove the stock "XYZ organization" from the form letter provided to them by lobbyists. Of course there's dozens upon dozens of similar groups flooding the FCC with essentially the same letter, including Stallworth Lumber Company, United Way of the Capital Area, and Graham Transfer & Storage. This letter from Northrup Grumman Shipbuilding (Shipbuilding??) parrots all of AT&T's lobbying positions, but it forgets to remove the "Governor/PUC Letters to FCC on Net Neutrality" header, indicating that the FCC essentially got the same form letter as everybody else.

It's one thing for small companies who pal about with AT&T on their home state golf courses to parrot AT&T positions, but it's rather unfortunate when supposedly legitimate consumer, minority or disability groups (like the National Association For the Deaf, the NAACP or the once-relevant National Consumer's League) sell out their constituents by undermining consumer interests on AT&T's behalf. Almost as bad is the fact that money that could be spent on network infrastructure often instead goes to the creation of bogus consumer groups (many of which are included in the broadband industry's latest lobbying coalition) who fight against consumers.

Whether you support network neutrality rules or not, this kind of pseudo-consumer skulduggery is particularly greasy, and it's something that needs to change if we're ever going to have a genuine, useful conversation about broadband policy issues.

Update: One user writes in to note that the Bob Sells cited as the head of the "Arkansas Retired Seniors Coalition" was a Southwestern Bell public relations employee for nearly thirty years.