Another astroturf operation? Who's running things?
Verizon infamously hired an ‘astroturfing’ company to send faxes to the mayor of Red Bank proclaiming to be from local residents. Mayor McKenna sensing something afoot with these faxes did a little research and called Verizon out. Verizon wanted it to appear that there was a real grass roots effort in support of them being undertaken by the residents of our small town; but there wasn’t. It was all made up and it backfired miserably.
Now the telcos are doing it again. Have these guys got balls or what? They set up a phony web site, designed it to appear to be run by a grass roots organization and started pushing a web video trying to discredit a real grass roots campaign. (I’m not going to link to their web site)
Let me try to speak clearly to telecom management: These ass backwards actions are exactly the reason why we don’t trust you and your future plans for the internet. Can’t you see that? Who’s running things up there? We’re not bad people trying to make life hard on you, it’s your actions that make us not trust you. Speak clearly to us, state your case, engage in rational debate and build up a relationship with your customers. Tricky astroturf actions only enforce the notion that handing the keys to the internet to you is a bad thing.