But Internet Essentials is just one glaring example of how a company like Comcast is allowed to draft its own flimsy merger conditions, which amusingly even then it often struggles to adhere to.

If Comcast was “struggling” with meeting these conditions it would imply some amount of good faith effort on their part. Which is patently untrue

“We’re not the worst company in US for nothing! It’s because WE CARE!”

Sorry so long but I think you’ll find it worth the read.

Recently I was a blogger on CNBC’s website. As a day trader I hung out “there” and commented on articles, shot the b.s. with others, and so on. Daily for many months. There were two particular bloggers on there who treated one section of the site as their own property and, often with the aid of plenty of sockpuppets, harrassed and insulted any blogger who made a comment they didn’t like or that disagreed with one of their posts. They drove most good bloggers off the site pretty quickly. I stuck around and tried to engage in rational debate. Pointless. Tried to ignore them but after a while it got old and (a little regretfully) I began to throw there own b.s. back at them (the two dbags.) It wasn’t hard to “win” arguments with these knuckleheads.

As it turned out, they were both somewhat wealthy, retired traders (one in Maryland, one in Texas.) Much of the criticism aimed at these dbags concerned the extraordinary levels of self-entitlement — when others weren’t “rubbing it in” after I or someone else ripped on them over some new arrogant dbaggery.

The two couldn’t handle that and began firing off letters to CNBC’s management “Comcast investors” whatever that means (their words), with the intent of getting me “banned.” It became clear that they really were doing that — their were a few rumblings from CNBC on the site about “censorship” being bad. But they persisted and elevated it — they would tell us all about their latest attempts to manipulate CNBC/Comcast right there on the blog. Eventually they claimed to have gotten phone calls from CNBC’s attorney asking about what was going on. And then assured us that the attorney called to let them know he’d hired private investigators to investigate — ME! (and the implication was that they’d agreed to stop sending mail to “Comcast investors.” I can’t imagine what these two dbags told them.

I didn’t really believe that but within a week, there was an unmarked green sedan with FL plates parked in front of my small office — a really intimidating looking guy would just sit in the car all day, with handcuffs hanging from the rear-view window.

Another guy, also kind of intimidating looking, did the same at my apartment. Blue sedan. I thought it couldn’t have anything to do with me, just coincidence or something. After a time I thought perhaps I should call the police but instead approached the green sedan.

A black male, maybe early 30s, got out of the sedan and in a very threatening manner said to me, “You better watch what the f*$* you say on the web.”

I was speechless for a moment, as he turned to get back in his car. I yelled “Who hired you?” He didn’t respond. But I never saw his car of the blue car again. I got the green sedan’s license plate number (never got the blue car’s) and paid a P.I. to check it out. He said the owner was a licensed P.I. from Florida and that the guy had a bad reputation as a “goon.”

Really freaked me out. I started lurking on CNBC (not posting) using Tor. The two dbags were no claiming victory. “They found him,” one posted. The other kept posting undetailed thank you’s to CNBC’s attorney by name.

Another blogger who knew the two dbags posted their names on the site after they turned on her (they had shared identities etc by email.) They got pretty upset about that so I knew it was probably true. My P.I. checked them out — one was a former FCC attorney, retired. The other a former honcho at HP, retired.

I posted on the site that I intended to sue them. They laughingly challenged me to prove it and I told them I had all I needed to tie CNBC to the threats/stalking, and that subpoenas/testimony/deposition would prove it.

Then they got pretty worried, stopped being dicks, sort of apologized without admitting anything, and changed their screen names and laid low a while.

Needless to say, I was done with CNBC/Comcast/ADELPHIA/etc(check out Comcast’s holdings — these guys seem to love buying up company’s with a history of criminality.)
Currently looking for an attorney to take it pro bono. Can’t afford the cash for this that a few attorneys quoted me.

Nor is Comcast unique in this. AT&T was required to give a program for the poor as part of a deal with the DOJ. Something like $10 per month (memory could well be wrong here but not that there was a program set up). AT&T made the program and then buried it where it was extremely hard to find.

I found it on a radio public notice. I applied for it and it was shortly cancelled to raise the price as the program was ending. Never did get the claimed price advertised on the radio. It pretty much came out to be bait and switch.