Notorious spammer claims net neutrality applies to spam
Jason Flanary (R), chief operating officer at ccAdvertising -- a company specializing in political text message spam – turned heads during the last presidential election by sending unsolicited messages to smartphones with statements like, "Obama believes killing children is a right until the umbilical cord is cut."
While Mr. Flanary was disappointed to lose his own election bid for the Virginia state senate [source] amid the controversy that ensued, he's now pushing ahead on an even more ambitious effort. He's asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to either whitelist political spam (or "political messages" as he views it) or to declare spam in general protected free speech.
Either way, he argues, it should be illegal for private businesses to block or discriminate against using filters traffic they consider "spam".
In the wake of the ccAdvertising text campaign many carriers began to block his company's messages, recognizing that their customers did not want the unsolicited and often times unwelcome texts. But in doing so Mr. Flanary claims they broke the law.
Jason Flanary is among the Republicans breaking with part ranks to voice support for net neutrality, arguing it should be expanded to protect political spam.
[Image Source: FairFax Patch]
His stand is unusual as in the past most federal Republicans contended that net neutrality was an abusive expansion of federal power and intrusion on free market. Now it appears that at least some Republicans may be changing their mind, looking to leverage the FCC policy to their advantage.
If you want to respond to Mr. Flanary's claim that political text message spam is protected free speech, the FCC welcomes public comments here. Be aware, you must give your real name and address.
Sources: FCC [filing], [comments], DailyKos
"A politician stumbles over himself... Then they pick it out. They edit it. He runs the clip, and then he makes a funny face, and the whole audience has a Pavlovian response." -- Joe Scarborough on John Stewart over Jim Cramer
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