Senator Franken, Comcast’s fiercest critic, tries to lure allies from Silicon Valley

Sen Al Franken (D-MN) has become Capitol Hill's loudest opponent of Comcast's bid for Time Warner Cable. Now, he's trying to root out like-minded critics from Silicon Valley.

In a letter to the trade group Computer & Communications Industry Association, Sen Franken asked for the group's opinion on the $45 billion merger. If approved by federal regulators, Comcast would wind up with 40 percent of the broadband Internet market. Sen Franken said that's too much power in the hands of a single company, which could act as a powerful gatekeeper for Internet content and services into US homes.

"Your organization includes companies from many sectors of our communications and Internet economy, including industry leaders in search, social networking, e-commerce and music and video content delivery. All of these organizations depend on broadband networks to operate," Sen Franken wrote in his letter to CCIA President Ed Black. CCIA's members include Google, Facebook, eBay, Aereo and Yahoo.