Critics Decry 'Secret Deal' as AT&T, Google Huddle With FCC

Google, AT&T, and Verizon executives are meeting behind closed doors with Federal Communications Commission officials in talks that critics say reduce the public's voice in keeping the Internet open.

"These kinds of meetings where the substance isn't being revealed go against [FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's] promise of an open, transparent and inclusive agency," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. The FCC may be negotiating a "secret deal" that would keep Chairman Genachowski from fulfilling President Barack Obama's pledge to back net neutrality, said Josh Silver, president of the Washington-based advocacy group Free Press. The agency may be about to "abdicate its responsibility to protect Internet users," Silver said.

"We are fully committed to preserving the free and open Internet," Jen Howard, an FCC spokeswoman, said yesterday. The sessions, held in conference rooms at the FCC's Washington headquarters, are properly disclosed in subsequent public filings, as are all such meetings with agency staff, she said.

FCC Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus is leading the meetings with a core group of six industry representatives. Among them are Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president of Dallas-based AT&T; Tom Tauke, executive vice president of New York-based Verizon; Richard Whitt, telecommunications and media counsel for Mountain View, California-based Google; and Christopher Libertelli, senior director of Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA.