New Lobbying Tactics Up Ante in Net Neutrality Fight

Net neutrality is a major focus for Free Press. The group was a vocal player in the 2006 neutrality debate when Congress was considering legislation sponsored by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a longtime neutrality advocate. The non- profit’s resources have grown since then, tax filings show. Contributions from supporters in 2008 were $4 million, up from $2.3 million in 2007 and $1.1 million in 2005.

“Free Press has become a juggernaut in the District of Communications,” said Christopher Parandian, a former industry lobbyist and founder of Tin Can Communications. “By utilizing digital tools early and often, the Free Press team has built a machine that can deliver results.” He credited Free Press’ efforts for helping launch the FCC net neutrality rulemaking. Parandian said he doesn’t always agree with the group’s views, but “loves the strategy they use.”

Google, Yahoo and Amazon are the biggest technology companies active on the Hill and FCC, Senate disclosure records show.

AT&T is publicly identified as a supporter of at least six associations that advocate on broadband and net neutrality issues, while Google is publicly identified as a member of four groups. The two companies, which frequently spar over net neutrality, are both listed as members of the Technology Policy Institute and Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF). AT&T is the largest spender on telecom lobbying activities, which span a range of issues including broadband, wireless, tax and health care, Senate records show. Google, Amazon and eBay are gradually increasing their lobbying expenditures but their spending dwarfs the telecom industry’s expenditures. Both sides of the net neutrality debate have extensive media outreach, and participate in the dozen or more panels and conferences convened since the FCC proposed neutrality rules in October.

It’s impossible to tell how much companies are spending specifically on net neutrality lobbying from disclosure records, which don’t break out spending by issue. Network operator records show no significant spending increases this year over 2008, but 2009 figures won’t be available until early next year. Carriers are putting some of their financial firepower into the coalitions and research groups that have become active on the neutrality issue. Even among coalitions that identify corporate sponsors, there are no figures provided in tax filings or corporate disclosures listing how much they give. Most nonprofits do not identify donors by name to protect privacy.

Lobbying to Intensify

Neutrality lobbying will pick up in earnest next year, said Evan Tracey, founder of Campaign Media Analysis, which studies advocacy efforts on a range of political issues. “You are seeing early moves on the chessboard of what will likely be a larger scale campaign when Congress comes back next year.”

Companies are doing a “preemptive” strike with “soft campaigns” that play up the benefits they offer to consumers, Tracey said. “Right now the focus is on job creation.” Ads tend to talk about the positive things companies are doing, such as the number of jobs already created, while warning of the bad things that could happen if the wrong policies are adopted, he said. “I've seen a lot of this over the past seven years in corporate advocacy” with companies making “cause and effect arguments.” For instance, some industry lobbying groups are promoting the importance of broadband in ad campaigns as a driver of economic growth, sidestepping the controversy associated with net neutrality.

Net neutrality is hard for the general public “to get,” Tracey said. On a technical level it’s complex, but politically it has become emotional. Left-leaning groups paint the issue in terms of user rights, industry fears investment will be stymied if the wrong rules are adopted and conservatives like Glenn Beck say the effort is a “Marxist plot” to control Internet content. To get across detailed policy explanations, companies have to shape their messages to reach a specific group of lawmakers, staffers and journalists, Tracey said. “It’s like renting out a stadium for a very small wedding. You spend a lot to get a few people involved.”

Neutrality debaters each accuse the other of using “astroturf” groups, as in fake grassroots groups, to masquerade an agenda in the guise of public interest desires. “Astroturf is Washington’s new invective. It’s hurled left and right to dismiss groups that are engaged on both sides of President Obama’s reform efforts,” Free Press Campaign Director Timothy Karr wrote in his MediaCitizen blog. “Astroturf is part of the process now,” said Tracey. It’s common practice among lobbying interests to create groups that organize letter writing campaigns and state-by-state outreach, he said.

“I think companies thought ‘we'll just create some of these astroturf groups and it [net neutrality] will go away,” Free Press Senior Program Director Craig Aaron said. “But it’s a much more different political situation now” with neutrality proponents in a decision-making role, he said. “And the other thing is we have a phone and cable industry that have learned from some of their mistakes” and are now using “a very aggressive approach and sophisticated strategy” to present their point of view. Another change from 2006 is involvement from the “far right,” which views neutrality regulation as a threat to free speech, Aaron said. “There is a much larger public fight.”

“We can’t compete head-to-head in terms of lobbying” with phone and cable, which have “dispatched around 500 lobbyists on the Hill” to fight net neutrality, Aaron said. AT&T, which has the largest lobbying footprint in the industry, says it has about a dozen lobbyists on the Hill. Free Press has nine people in Washington and an overall staff of 40, and has attracted more than a million followers through its “Save the Internet” campaign, Aaron said. Supporters are asked for donations and to write advocacy letters. “Right now net neutrality is our No. 1 priority,” Aaron said. “Our policy team is working full-time on this and our two lawyers are spending a good part of their time as well.”

Free Press was founded in 2002 by media scholar Robert McChesney and Josh Silver, its executive director. Its first policy priority was raising concern over media diversity in an era of increased ownership consolidation. Billionaire George Soros gave Free Press a $200,000 grant in 2004 and $400,000 in 2005 through his Open Society Institute, according to the foundation’s grant database. Soros founded the institute in 1993 to support public policies to “assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems” throughout the world, a mission statement said. In accordance with IRS instructions, grant givers were not itemized by source on Free Press’ tax filings.

Corporate Messaging

Phone companies are reluctant to talk in specifics about their lobbying efforts on net neutrality. “We are fully engaged in this important policy debate on behalf of our customers, employees and shareholders, as well as the future of the Internet,” a Verizon spokesman said. “Verizon’s joint letter with Google is helping to shape the debate in a constructive manner.” He said Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg gave a major speech the day before the rulemaking explaining the company’s thinking on the issue. The Verizon-Google letter, made public the day before the FCC rulemaking (CD Oct 23 p1), highlights areas of agreement between the two companies founded on a shared belief that the Internet should remain an “unrestricted and open platform.”

One of the most recently formed industry advocacy groups is Broadband for America, started in September. Supporters include AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, USTelecom, Verizon, Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA), US Internet Industry Association and the National Cable & Telecommunications Alliance, among others. Its mission is to “make broadband access to the Internet available to every household in the nation.” Another relative newcomer concerned with wireless broadband is the Mobile Future Coalition. Both are doing a fair amount of print and online advertising extolling the benefits of broadband. Both groups identify their supporters, as does New America Foundation, netCompetition.org, Internet Innovation Alliance, ITTA, Computer and Communications Industry Association, Open Internet Coalition, PFF, Technology Policy Institute and TechAmerica.

Industry-backed organizations that keep supporter lists private include Heartland Institute, Phoenix Center, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), Institute for Policy Innovation, Free State Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Consumer Research Institute, Freedom Works and U.S. Internet Industry Association. Public interest groups that protect donor identities include Free Press, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project and Benton Foundation.

Free Press, Public Knowledge and the Open Internet Coalition work closely together on net neutrality, using blogs, e-mails, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools to promote their message. Experts also appear on panels countering industry arguments. “We will be continuing to do that throughout the next year, working both on the inside and outside,” Aaron said.

One strategy is inviting the public to post stories on SavetheInternet.com about how broadband helps them, and how net neutrality might hurt. Postings come from students, small businesses and retirees. “If companies can pick and choose who can upload what and for what price, I might be frozen out of that effort,” wrote Larry Jewell of Missouri, who said he collects and posts World War II documents. Broadband for America also invites public comment on its Web site via Twitter about how broadband is important to their lives. A recent post complained, “In this rural area the few providers make the cost prohibitive for me. Why should only the wealthy get to google at high speed?”

Tin Can’s Parandian credits Sprint and Verizon as being leaders in the new media outreach pioneered by Free Press. Savvy public relations spokesmen send reporters blog postings and links to articles that illustrate the company’s viewpoint, he said. AT&T uses similar techniques. Other companies, which he declined to name, are “posers … that beg for followers on Facebook and Twitter and continue to spend gobs of money doing the same thing over and over again [lobbying] in Washington and getting the same results,” Parandian said.

“The rhetoric is so powerful. … Who could be against an ‘open Internet?,'” said Lawrence Spiwak, president of the market-oriented Phoenix Center. “The problem is when rhetoric has to be translated into policy rules,” he said. “These things have consequences.” There is not enough objective debate on net neutrality, said ITIF President Robert Atkinson. Atkinson said he tries to provide a forum for both sides to discuss their views, but it doesn’t always succeed. He recalled a panel with netCompetition.org founder Scott Cleland and Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld that “disintegrated” when the two could find no common ground.

The advocacy is “still pretty emotional” but FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will ensure the process is fairly handled, said Thomas Lenard, president of the Technology Policy Institute. “This is really a Washington-centric issue,” said Free State Foundation Randolph May, saying he’s optimistic that “sound policy will win.”

The net neutrality movement is “classic negative campaigning,” Cleland said. Google and Free Press are the drivers behind the push for neutrality rules, he said. Eighty percent of non-corporate lobbying on neutrality can be credited to Free Press, he said, “For the phone companies, it’s all hands on deck” to counter the effort to impose rules.