Mark Cuban Says Net Neutrality Will ‘Fuck Everything Up’
Ethics Billionaire Mark Cuban Says Net Neutrality Will
‘Fuck Everything Up’ (Video)
February 18, 2015, 6:26 PM PST
By Dawn Chmielewski
Billionaire investor and ABC “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban
unloaded on the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to fundamentally
change how it oversees the open Internet.
“That will fuck everything up,” said the voluble Cuban in
remarks Wednesday at the Code/Media conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna
Niguel, Calif.
In early February, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed
tough new rules for Internet lines that would prohibit wired and wireless
broadband providers from collecting payment to cut to the front of the line, or
blocking and throttling lawful content and services.
Cuban said this bid to significantly expand the agency’s
authority to regulate broadband providers is nothing more than an attack on
giant media companies like Comcast*.
“Net neutrality is just a demonization of big companies,”
Cuban said.
Cuban, who parlayed his windfall from the 1999 sale of
Broadcast.com to Yahoo into an array of ventures that include the NBA’s Dallas
Mavericks, AXS TV and the Landmark Theatres chain, said there is no evidence
(beyond an isolated 2008 case) that Internet providers have throttled access to
certain websites.
The executive dismissed Netflix’s claims that subscribers
endured slower speeds until the company paid Comcast for direct access to the
Internet provider’s broadband network. Comcast claimed that Netflix had used an
inferior middleman to deliver video to Comcast’s network.
“It’s a battle between two fairly large companies,” Cuban
said. “[They] worked it out, just like happens in business every day.”
Cuban said he does not want a group of political
appointees at the FCC regulating the Internet.
“Having them overseeing the Internet scares the shit out
of me,” Cuban said.
However, he said he would have no objection to Congress
passing a law specifying that Internet providers can’t discriminate against or
block legal websites.
* Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is a minority investor
in Revere Digital, Re/code’s parent company.
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