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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday March 29 2016, @07:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the dealing-with-hypocrites dept.

From CNET:

Angry Netflix customers are a force to be reckoned with, and they're the ones owed an explanation about why the company would slow the transmission of video streams to some wireless customers without informing them.

Netflix found itself in the hot seat after admitting, in a Wall Street Journal story Thursday, that for five years it had been tamping down service to Verizon and AT&T customers. What's more, the Los Gatos, California, company said the policy excluded customers of T-Mobile and Sprint.

Critics immediately cried foul on Netflix, seeing hypocrisy on the part of a company that two years ago led a fight to require the Federal Communications Commission to adopt "strong" Net neutrality rules that would ban Internet service providers from slowing traffic under almost any circumstances. Netflix also wanted the FCC to require operators to be more transparent in how they manage their networks.

But the most galling aspect may be that Netflix never notified its customers that it was imposing a slowdown.

"There is nothing wrong with what Netflix is doing," said Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, a group that has opposed the FCC's Net neutrality regulations. "Except for not making it public."


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  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:50PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:50PM (#325488) Journal

    True, and if T-Mobile and Sprint allow tethering, but Verizon and AT&T forbid it, then this is fully justifiable.

    That *might* justify it if there was no way to get video from your phone to a larger screen without tethering. But plenty of phones support direct HDMI output.

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  • (Score: 1) by butthurt on Thursday March 31 2016, @10:06PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Thursday March 31 2016, @10:06PM (#325498) Journal

    I hadn't thought of that. Tork's comment [soylentnews.org] alludes to it.