IP Democracy: Verizon Exec: We Don't Want to Police Content

(Washington, DC) Unlike its fellow giant telco AT&T, Verizon has no interest in filtering its broadband customers' data streams to identify pirated video content, Verizon's top public policy executive said today. Speaking at the Congressional Internet Caucus' State of the Net conference, Tom Tauke, former congressman and current EVP of Public Affairs at Verizon said "we really don't want to play the role of policing the Internet" when asked whether Verizon shared AT&T's interest in helping Hollywood ferret out pirated content by implementing network level filters.

"We don't see ourselves as being a great arbiter" of what does and doesn't flow back and forth from its Internet customers, Tauke said. Verizon's hands-off policy might stem as much from self-interest as it does the public interest. Messing around with data streams invites all kinds of potential legal problems for the telco. "We are fearful of how you deploy these technologies [filters] without opening up a can of worms," he said.

Verizon's policy when it comes to text messaging, however, is different. The telco sparked an uproar last year when it initially refused to send out SMS messages sponsored by NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League, a decision Verizon quickly rescinded.

The NARAL controversy forced Verizon to engage in an internal review of the policies it applies to text messaging, Tauke said. "It did trigger a whole review within the company in terms of how we deal with these issues," he said, adding that this review is almost completed.

But Tauke rejected the notion that this kind of text messaging, which allows one company or organization to send out bulk text messages en masse to multiple phones, should be offered on a common carrier basis, available to anybody regardless of content. He cited a recent request Verizon had received from one company that sought to send out a text message soliciting mobile phone users to call a particular phone number. Calls to that number would have cost each mobile phone user $29.

If Verizon didn't exercise its discretion and had allowed the message sender to blast Verizon's mobile phone customer base, the "outcry" would have deafening, Tauke said. "We have to exercise some judgment in terms of the kinds of entities that want to use the service."

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on January 30, 2008 4:09 PM to IP Democracy